Innovation through research

BioBrew is a New Zealand success story that began in 2010 with a first small project at Lincoln University. This project led to a long-term relationship with Associate Professor Craig Bunt, who continues to advise the company.
BioBrew managing director, Andre Prassinos, said, “I think that more NZ companies should take advantage of the R&D resources made available through MBIE, Callaghan Innovation, Sustainable Food and Fibre (SFF), NZTE, Agmardt, and the other government-supported programmes available to NZ innovators.
“We first received funding for a legal opinion, a Freedom To Operate, that allowed us to begin work with confidence that we were not impinging on another company’s IP.”
The company then began several years of work at Lincoln University with support from Callaghan Innovation.
As the work at Lincoln was coming to completion, SFF provided funding in 2012 for a large-scale trial involving 296 calves on three farms.
Two and a half years later, SFF again provided funding to look at the longer-term effects of using CalfBrew on the treated calves.
Additionally, funding recently came from Agmardt for a piece of fundamental research in a murine (mouse) model yielding very promising results that will guide future research projects.
“It is safe to say that we would not be where we are today if we had not received this support,” Prassinos said. “I encourage every NZ innovator to look carefully at all of the resources available to them here in NZ.”