Munich-based Wacker has announced that its Wacker Fine Chemicals division is to be renamed Wacker Biosolutions, following a recent restructuring. This is being done to reflect the fact that in the future the company as a whole “intends to mainly rely on its solution expertise in the field of biotechnology”.

The division, which mainly serves the food additives, pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals sectors, will still include both fine chemicals and biotechnology activities and will seek synergies between them. However, in recent years double-digit annual growth has come from biotechnology-derived products such as cyclodextrins and fermentation-generated cysteine, whereas fine chemicals have stalled.

Wacker is currently in the process of extending process development and production capacities for the manufacture of pharmaceutical proteins at its Wacker Biotech site in Jena, Germany. It has also expanded its red and white industrial biotechnology capabilities by building a new cyclodextrin production facility at Eddyville in the US in 2009.