Incorporated in February 2001 and located in Toulouse, France, LibraGen is specialized in the development of bioprocesses for the production of valuable molecules for fine chemistry, pharmaceutical, food, cosmetic, and environmental industries. Libragen's competitive edge consists in its ability to turn the huge genetic diversity of the 99 % of bacteria that can not be cultured under conventional conditions into an accessible reservoir of chemical compounds and enzymes. These enzymes are an unlimited tool box for the synthesis and industrial production of active pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and food ingredients, as well as of intermediates and bulk chemicals. LibraGen has acquired a strong expertise in the field of biocatalytic production development of active compounds and valuable fine chemistry products. Its partnerships in biocatalysis combine all crucial aspects of a fully integrated project including discovery, molecular evolution and engineering, process development, as well as IP matters. LibraGen's biocatalysis experience enables to rapidly answer a number of requests from our participants, namely (i) metagenomics, (ii) enzyme discovery and optimisation, (iII) set up and optimisation of biocatalytic reactions from bench to pilot scale, and (iv) biocatalytic production of chemical compounds.

Role in the project:
As an innovative SME, LibraGen is continuously looking for establishing strong collaborations with well known academic participants to improve and develop its own technologies. In this program, LibraGen is looking at increasing its collection of metagenomic clones for its own purposes. The metagenomic libraries represent the basic resources for LibraGen over all programs including the identification of novel enzymes for the development of innovative bioprocesses mainly for fine chemistry. At the same time, LibraGen will benefit from the screening expertises of the consortium to develop and run new screening approaches for the identification of new enzymes, implementing the collection of libraGen enzymes which can be further used in the development of totally new and efficient bioprocesses for industrial interests. At the end, LibraGen will be in contact with major industrial actors on different markets to investigate the possibilities to use the proprietary LibraGen technologies on prospective applications which have not been addressed yet.