Development services
You own what we develop.
You set the specification. We develop the strain and the process that scales, then hand over everything your team needs to run it.
How a project works
Pricing
Fixed fee against a defined scope
Timeline
Fixed, staged across milestones
Handover
Strain, process, SOPs and analytics
Rights
Yours in full, with no royalty
Most projects stall between lab and industrial scale
The biology usually works at laboratory scale. What breaks is everything after it: a strain that will not hold productivity in a stirred tank, a medium that is too expensive at tonne scale, a titre that drops on the way to pilot, an analytical method nobody has validated for the matrix you actually sell. None of these are science problems. They are process problems, and no amount of further screening will solve them. They are solved by people who have already taken microalgae from shake flask to production tank and know where it breaks.
What we do
Three kinds of project
Strain development and improvement
Selection, adaptation and non-recombinant improvement of non-GMO microalgae strains against the specification you set: target compound content, productivity, growth rate, or tolerance to industrial conditions.
- Screening and strain selection
- Adaptive laboratory evolution
- Master cell bank and characterisation
Fermentation and bioprocess development
Heterotrophic fermentation process design around your strain or ours: media formulation, including media built on agro-industrial side streams, feeding and control strategy, and the downstream route that follows it.
- Media and substrate formulation
- Feeding and control strategy
- Harvest and downstream route
Process optimisation and scale-up
Taking a process that works and making it hold. Titre, yield, and batch consistency carried from shake flask through bioreactor to pilot volume, with every parameter written down as you go, along with the reasoning behind each one.
- Shake flask to bioreactor to pilot
- Cost per kilogram reduction
- SOPs and scale-up parameters
How it runs
Five stages, and you see the result of each one
Scoping call and NDA
You describe the target, the matrix it has to work in and the volume you are aiming at.
Technical proposal
Objectives, success criteria, methods, milestones, timeline and a fixed fee, agreed before anything starts.
Development phase
Laboratory work against agreed milestones, with results reported at each one rather than at the end.
Validation
Measured against the success criteria set at the start, at bioreactor or pilot scale where the project calls for it.
Technical handover
Strain, process, SOPs, analytical methods and data transferred to your team, with commissioning support.
What you are buying
Fixed fee, fixed timeline, full ownership
What you get
- A fixed fee quoted against a defined scope
- A fixed timeline, staged across agreed milestones
- Full technical handover: strain, process, SOPs, analytical methods and data
- Complete commercial rights to what we develop for you
- Freedom to produce wherever suits you
What you do not get
- A royalty on anything we develop in the project
- A tied purchase of inoculum or media
- An open-ended research budget
- A restriction on where or with whom you manufacture
- A genetically modified strain, ever
Where a project ends in a platform you would rather license than own, what you paid for the development phase is credited against the licence. We do not publish rates, because scope sets them.
Who we work with
Teams with a target, and a reason to own the result
Microalgae producers
Raise productivity on a strain you already run, or develop a fermentation route beside existing phototrophic capacity.
Fermentation and ingredient manufacturers
Develop an algal product for tank capacity you already own, without building a microalgae R and D function first.
Food, supplement and pet nutrition brands
Develop a differentiated non-GMO ingredient to your own specification, and keep the rights to it.
Research organisations and CDMOs
Joint development and R and D collaborations, including publicly funded consortia under national and European programmes.
Before you get in touch
Questions we are usually asked
You do. On a fixed-fee development project the deliverable and the commercial rights to it transfer to you at handover. There is no royalty, and no restriction on where you produce.
Yes. Improving or adapting a strain you already own is a common starting point, as is developing a fermentation process around it.
Scope is set jointly in the technical proposal, and the fee and timeline are fixed before work begins, staged across milestones so progress is visible against them.
Development runs in our laboratory at CRIA, University of the Algarve. Scale-up and pilot validation run through partner facilities and CDMOs, so a process can be validated at pilot volume inside a project rather than after it.
No. All strain work is non-GMO, using selection, adaptation and non-recombinant improvement. It is a deliberate choice, and it keeps clean label and EU regulatory routes open.
Projects are staged across milestones for exactly this reason. If the evidence at a milestone says the target is not reachable on the agreed route, we say so, and we agree the next step rather than continuing to spend the budget.
Tell us what you need developed
Send us the target, the matrix it has to work in and the volume you are aiming at. We will tell you within a week whether it is a development project, an existing platform, or not a fit.
PhycoFerm Lda., Universidade do Algarve, Campus de Gambelas, Faro, Portugal