Croda’s innovation story stretches back 100 years; here’s a glimpse of some of the trends impacting the speciality chemicals industry over the next quarter of a century – and how the company is planning for them
Over the coming decades, the speciality chemicals industry and the many industries that it supports, will see enormous change.
Some of this change will be driven by pressure from consumers, who are increasingly interested in sourcing more sustainable products, and also by businesses that want help with their net zero strategies. This is leading to shifts inside the chemical industry, including the move from virgin petrochemical feedstocks to bio-based and recycled feedstocks.
Other changes will result from new technologies, including the rise of engineering biology, which is creating new options for ingredient manufacturing by using plant cell cultures, fermentation and marine biotechnology. These hold the potential for sustainable and biologically-derived materials, as well as new revenue streams.
Beyond this, personalisation both in pharmaceuticals and consumer care could see a growing market for more targeted drugs, tailored to the genetic makeup of each patient, as well as cosmetic formulations designed for individuals. Meanwhile, the shift from small molecules to biologics that can target specific cells and tissues could improve treatments, but will also require new drug delivery systems.
All these scenarios feature in a report published by Croda looking at the trends shaping the outlook of the speciality chemicals industry based on the views of heads of R&D and strategy from across business.
Responding to such a range of potential futures is a challenge. So, bearing in mind this outlook for the coming decades, how does a company like Croda approach innovation?
For Mark Robinson, Global Head of Business Excellence at Croda, it means innovations that support sustainability which involve new chemistry and also, potentially new processes. That might include small-scale modular manufacturing that enables products to be made closer to customers. With Croda delivering many different products across a number of manufacturing sites it’s also possible to trial innovative new ways of doing things in one area before scaling up.
‘Localisation of supply chains is a trend that is here to stay so all the more need for developing manufacturing technologies that are far less capital and energy intensive. All these things build together to service not only net zero but what the customer needs in future,’ he says.
Sustainability is a key part of the innovation story, according to Phil Ruxton, Croda’s Chief Sustainability Officer, and becomes part of the strategy around resilience. ‘Now it’s even more important to make sure that sustainability is fully embedded in the business and so now it becomes focused and very specific about what business risks we are minimising. Are there risks in our supply chain that we want to avoid, to help our customers, or are there opportunities in the marketplace we want to take advantage of that are linked to sustainability?’ he says.
Part of that is about giving customers the data they need to understand the impact of the ingredients they use, he says.
Croda has an in-house R&D team of scientists working across everything from chemistry and biotechnology to specialist excipients and plant science.
‘Someone is going to come along and raise the bar and we’d rather that was us. So, we are constantly trying to innovate against ourselves to develop something that’s better and that is always raising the bar of the performance of what the chemistry will do,’ says Damian Kelly, Croda’s Vice President of Innovation and Technology.
As well as the internal team, the company also has strong links to external researchers. The company works with universities – sponsoring PhDs and postdocs – and startup companies around the world that have interesting new chemistry.
‘We get to work with a lot of clever people which helps to accelerate our activities,’ says Kelly. ‘We have launched thousands of products, we’ve been very successful as a business so it’s a narrative that shows that we can solve customer problems, we’ve been doing it for a long time. All that history of innovation and success helps to bring people back to the door who want to work with us,’ he says. A lot of the innovation starts with a request from a customer who needs an ingredient with particular qualities. ‘We have to find the best technical solution and hopefully we’ll land on it either internally or externally and bring back a solution to the customer, based on what they’ve asked for,’ Kelly explains. ‘The business model relies on a very intimate relationship with the customer – a sense of trust between them and us – that we will listen to them and attempt to provide the best technical solution,’ he says.
The majority of the R&D projects combine a mix of external and internal know-how. A molecule or chemistry might be developed in-house but evaluated externally, for example, or Croda might develop something externally but evaluate it in-house, depending on skills and capabilities.
‘We are always looking at new technologies, there’s always new chemistry coming though. A big focus is around biotechnology, which is really the ability to utilise nature and harness nature’s ability to innovate – nature is very good at it. So, if we can understand how nature does it then we can use that – fermentation, biocatalysis to make new products,’ Kelly notes. Kelly says there is plenty of innovative science still emerging. The challenge is to connect it to the needs of the customers.
‘In every university there are clever people synthesising new chemistry today but it’s about finding what it does and the right application, market or opportunity for this new chemistry. It’s the combination of universities and businesses working together that can help get this right,’ he says.
All of this is readying Croda for more innovation-led growth. ‘I think there is lots of new chemistry out there and more new sustainable chemistry coming through biotech, so there’s tonnes of stuff to play with, it’s about identifying the right opportunities and matching it with customer needs, that’s the key thing.’
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