Team:SCU-China/Market/Biosyn

HUMAN PRACTICE

BIOSYNTHESIS VS CHEMICAL SYNTHESIS

At present, the methods of producing cordycepin on the market mainly include biosynthesis and chemical synthesis.

Although chemical raw material was cheap, the process is complex, production line construction needs enormous investigation, the production cost is high, each gram cordycepin pure products about 10,000 RMB，output is fixed, size depending on the production line size. And different chemical synthetic routes have problems like low recovery rate, harsh production conditions, using toxic reagent which is difficult to separate. At present, there is no suitable chemical synthesis method of cordycepin for mass production and commercial application.

The biological synthesis process is simple, with low technical requirements, the entire production process using only existing fermentation, purification technology, and equipment. Applying the OEM model can avoid huge production line construction costs. The main cost of cordyceps biosynthesis method is medium and purification, and the cost of cordyceps per gram is about 13,000 RMB, which along with the fermentation technology of improvement has a great drop space. The output is large, can change with fermentation tank volume and quantity. There are also advantages like the low production requirement, no risk of toxic chemical reagent remaining. Therefore, the biosynthesis method has better industrial production and application value. At the same time, compared with the chemical method, the public prefers the products produced by biological methods and purely natural product extraction. They even understand and accept that the price of biological method and natural extraction is higher than that of chemical method, which makes biological synthesis, has greater market value. Considering the advantages and weaknesses mentioned above, we chose the biosynthesis route to make further improvements.