Biotech specialist Afyren (Saint-Beauzire / France; www.afyren.com) said it plans to list on the Paris-based Euronext Growth stock exchange in 2021, and founders and Afyren MDs Nicolas Sordet and Jeremy Pessiot plan to use the proceeds from the sale of shares to drive the company’s further development. In addition to its first commercial plant for organic acids, which is under construction in Carling in eastern France (see Plasteurope.com of 05.04.2019), two further reactors are scheduled to be built by 2026, but their locations have not yet been announced.

Afyren, with just over 30 employees, has so far invested around EUR 44m in the construction of the facilities. The line of the 51:49 joint venture Afyren Neoxy with the French sovereign wealth fund BPI is set to start operations in Carling in the first quarter of 2022, six months later than originally planned.

The supply of biomass raw material has been secured, Sordet said, noting that half of the planned Carling production volume has already been sold. The reactor is to have a capacity of 16,000 t/y, and company plans to make acetic acid, propionic acid, butyric and isobutyric acid, valeric and isovaleric acid and caproic acid, which are precursors for cosmetics, flavouring, biofuels and biopolymers.