C-LECTA

c-LEcta, a global biotechnology company with technology leadership in enzyme engineering and bioprocess development, continued its growth in 2021. The high expectations for the fiscal year have been fully met and were even significantly exceeded. Thus, the management expects annual revenue in the range of EUR 20 million, which equates to a doubling of last year’s result. With an expanded team, further investments in the product range and the ENESYZ technology platform are expected to keep up the pace of growth in the coming year.

The continued growth confirms the Leipzig-based company’s strategy of placing its development on a solid foundation with a broad range of specialized enzymes for the pharmaceutical and food industries. With average revenue growth of 56% from 2018 to 2020 and further growth expected to reach around EUR 20 million in 2021, even during the Covid-19 pandemic, the business performance illustrates the strength and resilience of this strategy.

“We are very proud of our performance in recent years. Our products provide good growth momentum and also great resilience due to the diverse application fields and this has supported us over the last two years. To continue to drive this growth in the long term, we have continued to build our team again this year and now employ 108 people. Moving forward, we plan to continue to invest in additional staff and equipment,” commented Thomas Pfaadt, CFO of c-LEcta GmbH.

c-LEcta managed to launch its new product NuCLEANase in October 2021. NuCLEANase is an enzyme that is used to remove unwanted DNA residues, in the food industry, for example, but also helps to dissolve deposits on machines and manufacturing equipment. The high demand from customers already at its launch confirms the high market potential for this product.

“NuCLEANnase is an incredibly versatile product that holds great potential. However, the development also demonstrates the versatility of our ENESYZ technology platform, which allows enzyme developments based on different production systems for a wide range of applications. ENESYZ is constantly being further developed. For example, this year we were able to integrate an additional expression host, Bacillus, into our enzyme engineering platform,” explained Dr. Marc Struhalla, founder and CEO of c-LEcta.

The company also made significant progress in the area of machine learning and artificial intelligence in 2021. “We were recently able to achieve some very promising results in this innovative area. The topic is a very important building block for future product developments and we are extremely motivated to rapidly expand our expertise in this area,” Dr. Struhalla added.

Many new customers were once again acquired over the course of 2021. There was strong demand for the products from the DENARASE family, which also address the gene and cell therapy market. A total of more than 500 mailings were sent out to more than 200 customers from nearly 30 countries. The largest sales market was the USA. The ELISA kit launched in 2020 was also a particular success, with very significant growth in demand in 2021.

c-LEcta’s most important markets, the food and pharmaceutical industries, are subject to strict regulations worldwide. An enzyme dossier submitted by c-LEcta facilitates the approval of its products for customers from the food industry. With the filing of a master file with the FDA,

c-LEcta supports its customers in terms of regulatory compliance and demonstrates the quality of its manufacturing processes and products.

In October, c-LEcta secured itself its own building complex with more than 10,000 m² of space in the new biotechnology campus that spans a total area of 27,000m² and is to be built at the “Alte Messe” site in Leipzig starting in the second quarter of 2022. “We want to and will indeed continue to grow. Great new space is being built at Alte Messe, which will allow us to set up state-of-the-art office and laboratory areas for our growing team. This will provide us with the space to continue our growth,” Dr. Struhalla concluded.

About c-LEcta

c-LEcta is a world-leading biotechnology company with a focus on enzyme engineering and application in regulated markets like the food and pharma industries. The company is based in Leipzig, Germany, and has established itself as a leading player in the realization of high-value biotech products, either in the form of in-house developments or in close cooperation with industry. The company currently employs more than 100 people.

c-LEcta delivers cost-efficient and sustainable production processes which open new markets and allow for better penetration of existing markets. The company is characterized by fast and efficient development of best-in-class biotech solutions and a rapid and successful market introduction and commercialization of the resulting products. This enables c-LEcta to leverage the unique potential of its core technologies. c-LEcta has a proven track record of more than ten successfully commercialized high-value industrial biotech products.

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