Who Are We?

Prolutica is a new start-up established in 2021; but the people behind Prolutica have worked together for many years (some of us for almost 20 years), and in the last 3-4 years we have focused on the areas, which today are a part of Prolutica’s business concept. A little more than a year ago, we had achieved breakthrough results and progresses and, therefore, it was time to establish Prolutica so that these promising and exciting results could be beneficially utilized.

Other reasons were that our progresses ought to reach as many as possible and because they will have a very strong, positive impact on the green transition and the future sustainable development on our planet. The success with Cannabis sativa is only the first step, the technologies, methods etc. can be used for many other crops, so it is not only a new way, which has been opened, it is a multi-lane super high-way, which has been opened for the future!

Our Mission

Even before focusing on sustainable development and – production, there was a lot of awareness of the fact that the increase of the global population in a relatively few years would mean that there would be a serious global shortage of protein to feed the earth’s growing population.

When at the same time it could be stated that the primary food production became a greater and greater burden on the globe, as it i.a. led to greater and greater greenhouse gas emissions, extensive environmental damage as well as temperature rise with severe and devastating climate change, it required that there were made absolutely fundamental changes in our entire production pattern and the exploitation of the natural resources of the planet.

Grassroots, NGOs, politicians, schoolchildren, etc. formulated the demand for the future: The future development must be sustainable, which is why the green transition must take place, and we must see the utilization of natural resources as part of the circular bioeconomy, whereby waste preferably should be completely avoided or at least dramatically reduced.

At Prolutica, we see ourselves as an extremely strong partner in this demand for future, sustainable development, as our products and technologies are all rooted in the green transition. We implement all the best from modern biotechnology, so that with completely new methods, equipment and technologies we can produce green products for the primary food production, and at the same time we can develop new products, which can have a strong impact on the possibility to live a healthier life.

Prolutica in Denmark and China

Today, there are two countries in the world, which are leaders in the development and utilization of Cannabis sativa (industrial hemp), and they are with no doubt Canada and China.

Since 1986, there has been a very close collaboration between the Danish participants in Prolutica, Danish universities, the Chinese state, Chinese companies and Chinese universities. This has also meant that several of the participants in Prolutica have worked together for many years – for some of us for more than 20 years. Several of the Chinese partners have thus received a large part of their education in Denmark – either in connection with their master’s degree or their Ph.D.

These ties have only become stronger in the time after the education and today, they form a completely unique collaborative relationship both academically, commercially and in a strong personal friendship.

As an example, in connection with the utilization of Cannabis sativa, it can be mentioned that since 2006 (at that time in collaboration with the Funen County and the Guangdong Province) we have focused very strongly on the development of products from Cannabis sativa, as this cascade crop has an enormous potential with a huge number of business possibilities.

This Sino-Danish cooperation also led to some of our team members participating in the Sino-Danish state agreement from 2012, where Denmark and China were to cooperate on the development of sustainable, organic food production at a high level (both quantitatively and qualitatively).

In this collaboration, we very quickly came to focus on Cannabis sativa, as we had to find an alternative to the use of soy protein as an organic protein supplementary feed for the primary food production, as the use of soy protein is one of the biggest environmental sinners ever.

The collaboration between the partners in Prolutica, various universities in China and Denmark, Chinese companies working with many different products from Cannabis sativa (e.g. fibers, pharmaceuticals, human nutrition, probiotics etc.) as well as the Chinese – and Danish states means that we today have a completely unique collaborative relationship that in all ways ensures that we in Prolutica are able to implement our plans and our mission for the green transition.

Even though the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has had an incredibly negative impact in general, Prolutica has come through the last three years in a very strengthened position, which today enables Prolutica to invest 100% in both green juice, green bio-proteins and a myriad of very interesting BANS at an incredibly high level.

We could not have achieved this in either China or Denmark; but Prolutica has achieved this through a uniquely strong collaboration between both the Chinese and Danish partners at all levels, and Prolutica is today both active in China and Denmark.

This collaboration will only be strengthened in the coming years, and it will provide completely new, innovative opportunities when we are no longer subject to the snarling ties of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Status and Goals

The idea and business concept are that green bio-proteins in the green-juice from Cannabis sativa should be a very important replacement for soy protein. On top of this extensive business potential, it can be added that green-juice contains a number of other very important business opportunities (e.g. production of probiotics to reduce the consumption of antibiotics in primary food production) all of which support the implementation of the green transition.

Prolutica is thus a company with very great potential, and several exciting collaborations have already been established with both Danish and international companies.

In 2021, we also succeeded in developing a prototype for large-scale production of green juice from Cannabis sativa. The plans are that Prolutica in 2022 will built a new prototype in the correct materials and with the improvements implemented, which mean that Prolutica can produce green-juice of extremely high quality with almost no degradation of green bio-protein and BANS as well as green bio-proteins with very high bioavailability.

In 2022, it is further planned that Prolutica will optimize the cultivation of Cannabis sativa with high protein content. This must be seen both in the context of the sustainable, organic cultivation of the plant in order to achieve the greatest possible yield of green juice and green bio-protein; but also in relation to identifying the best varieties – not just quantitatively – but certainly also qualitatively, as the different varieties contain many different types of green bio-proteins. These different green bio-proteins can have many different options, some of which are best for e.g. supplementary feed in the primary food production (with high bioavailability for these animals), whereas others are particularly suitable for human nutrition – others can be used for both purposes.

Despite the fact that 2021 was a very challenging year due to the development of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, it was still a good and exciting year for Prolutica. In addition to the above-mentioned breakthroughs, it was also possible to identify a few very exciting and promising BANS in connection with the treatment of a very serious skin disease and the prevention of the development of type 2 diabetes. Prolutica will of course continue to work with these two BANS; but at the same time, Prolutica will intensify the analyses and identifications of other BANS from the many varieties of Cannabis sativa grown in 2022.

Figure caption:
The biggest problem with production of green-juice is that the juice quickly binds to the plant material after harvest and is, thus, lost (the black curve). We have been working on two different production improvements (the blue and the green curve) – both of which work well. But by combining these methods, you can improve the production so much that even 30 hours after harvest, it is still possible to squeeze out 94% of the green juice (the red curve). These new methods and equipment are part of Prolutica’s IPR.
These improvements will be implemented in the new equipment, which will be produced in 2022.
Source: Prolutica ApS

The Fight Against Multidrug Resistant Microorganisms

As our green-juice is produced in a very gentle way (part of our IPR strategy), it is very suitable as a starting substrate for the production of probiotics. In this process, the green-juice is fermented with lactic acid bacteria, which are selected and optimized so they will be able to stabilize the intestinal flora and the overall health in the intestine and gut. After fermentation, the green bio-proteins are purified in the usual way; but the product will now also contain millions of the beneficial lactic acid bacteria.

This product is very well-suited to give as a dietary supplement to both animals and humans, and it has already been proven that such a dietary supplement has a very good effect. It is for example possible to minimize the risk for the development of the very costly and dreaded diarrhea in piglets, which otherwise require treatment with very large amounts of antibiotics.

As stated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in their report “Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance” from 2020, then the world’s next big challenge is a pandemic caused by multidrug resistant bacteria, which has evolved because of the enormous consumption of antibiotic – not least in the primary food production. As of today, 750,000 people die annually due to infections with resistant bacteria, and this number will most likely increase to 10 million people in 2050. Therefore, this will result in more fatalities than fatalities caused by e.g. diabetes and cancer.

Therefore, this problem needs to be addressed now – it might even already be too late to avoid the pandemic; but we must try to minimize the consequences. The development of new probiotics is clearly one of the most promising avenues – especially combined with the use of Prolutica’s unique green-juice.

Product Plans

All our products and technologies are rooted in the green transition.

We implement all the best from the modern green food industry and state-of-the-art biotechnology, so that we with our innovative technologies will be able to produce our three main products from our organic fields with Cannabis sativa:

High quality green-juice (with different protein concentrations and purities)
Isolated and purified mixtures of green bio-proteins
Mixture of probiotics and green bio-proteins based on lactic acid fermented green-juice

On top of the above-mentioned products, Prolutica will also be able to deliver very exciting sustainable, organic bio-active natural substances (BANS) for the medical -, cosmetic – and food ingredient industries – all based on our unique green-juice.

It is obviously possible also to produce CBD and cooking oil from Prolutica’s unique, organic green-juice.

The organic fibers will be possible to use for clothing, composites, building material etc. and the curd can be used for hempcrete for building blocks, isolation material etc.

Nothing will be wasted!

All products based on our unique green-juice will have the huge advantage that proteins, BANS, CBD and different oils are purified under the gentlest conditions in order to obtain the highest possible degree of bio-activity, which is extremely important for the value of these products.

IPR-Strategy

It might be surprising that there are not already a large number of companies, which take advantage of the many opportunities there are for the utilization of the green-juice from Cannabis sativa.

There is, of course, a natural and obvious explanation for this: Extracting green-juice – and producing green bio-proteins from Cannabis sativa is by no means simple:

The green-juice binds to the internal structures of the plant very shortly after the plant is harvested, whereby the green-juice is lost, as it cannot be squeezed out.
The proteins in the green-juice begin to degrade and/or cross-link to each other quite shortly after the green-juice has been produced, whereby the protein loses a large part of its bioavailability and, thereby, also a large part of its nutritional value.

But in Prolutica we have solved these two challenges, so we can still get more than 94% of the green-juice out of the harvested hemp plants more than 30 hours after harvest (see the previous figure), which is a really crucial breakthrough in the utilization of green-juice from Cannabis sativa. As we have very extensive experience in working with proteins and have previously solved similar challenges with degradation and cross-linking, we can today reduce the degradation rate all the way down to approx. 6% for most proteins.

These very large advances are the cornerstones of Prolutica’s IPR-strategy, which covers equipment -, method – and technology development, and extends all the way to IPR protection of individual BANS.

These very large advances are the cornerstones of Prolutica ApS’ IPR strategy, which covers equipment -, method – and technology development, and extends all the way to IPR protection of individual BANS.

Therefore, it is a very broad, sound and strong IPR-strategy.

At the same time, there will be good IPR possibilities for patenting the function of the unknown BANS, when their function and/or possible physiological significance in connection with disease pathogenesis and possibly treatment have been established.

The strength of our intended harvesting -, production – and purification methods mean, among other things, that we in many cases can keep positive synergistic complexes of different BANS together throughout the purification phase. This makes it easier to investigate a possible physiological effect, and here it is a very big advantage for Prolutica that several of the partners in Prolutica have very extensive and international experience in testing new drugs as well as toxicity in studies on primary, human cells and tissues.

Several of the partners in Prolutica have already used such an IPR-strategy in connection with patents for BANS from completely different species, which is why Prolutica already possesses an extensive experience for such an IPR-strategy.

Prolutica ApS · CVR no. 42268062 · VAT DK42268062 · Valmuemarken 16 · DK-5260 Odense S · Denmark · [email protected]