VITAMIN PRODUCTION
Anhui Redpont charts a course as a standalone nicotinamide producer
O
ver the last six years, those following the Chinese vitamins scene have seen a new name emerge: Anhui Redpont Bio. Mere months ago, Redpont split from its parent company to become an independent operation in the vitamin B3 space. However, a closer look at the history of the company reveals that it is not a newcomer to the space, but instead has deep roots in the production chain of nicotinamide (one of the two forms of vitamin B3, along with niacin or nicotinic acid). In this Feedinfo Review exclusive, Feedinfo goes directly to the source and hears from the company’s chairman Hao Zhou to understand where Redpont comes from and where the market can expect it to go next.
INVOLVEMENT IN NICOTINAMIDE PRODUCTION Anhui Redpont Bio was established in 2016, as part of Nanjing Red Sun. Located in Maanshan City, Anhui Province, the company’s footprint covers an area of more than 600 mu (about 40 hectares) in Dangtu County. Zhou claims the company’s entire vitamin B3 production capacity amounts to 20,000 tonnes. “We are ranked second in vitamin B3 capacity globally while Lonza is ranked first. Lonza may have 10,000 tonnes/year in Nansha, 18,000 tonnes/ year in Switzerland, and thus 28,000 tonnes overall. But if we look at a single production line, we believe ours to be the largest nicotinamide production line in the world,” he says. Today, the company’s portfolio includes two products which it makes itself: cyanopyridine made from 3-methylpyridine, and nicotinamide made from 3-cyanopyridine. Beyond that, the
company has a ten-year exclusive distributorship for Nanjing Red Sun’s 3-methylpyridine. To understand how the company ended up in the nicotinamide production chain in the first place requires some understanding of the production process. Nanjing Red Sun, Redpont’s old parent company, is a manufacturer of pesticides, products whose production requires a chemical known as pyridine. Pyridine production has a byproduct, known as 3-methylpyridine. The output ratio between the two is 2:1; that is, for each unit of pyridine produced, one unit of 3-methylpyridine will also be created. This meant that, in the process of making pyridine for its pesticide production, Red Sun was left with large quantities of 3-methylpyridine. The initial solution was to sell it to others — namely Lonza, whose Nansha facility used it to make nicotinamide. However, Red Sun eventually decided to bring that transformation step in-house: “Our R&D team invested a lot of manpower and resources in developing a production process from 3-methylpyridine to 3-cyanopyridine to nicotinamide, and in 2016 we built a production line of 10,000 tonnes of 3-cyanopyridine and 10,000 tonnes of nicotinamide, and in 2018 we built an expanded production line to 20,000 tonnes each.” Still, Zhou stresses that the company is not simply one more undifferentiated nicotinamide producer; instead, it has developed the biotechnical know-how to qualify it as one of the pioneers in this space. “We developed nitrile hydratase Continued on page 26
Anhui Redpont’s 40 hectare site produces around 20,000 tons of vitamin B3 annually.
24 | SUMMER 2022
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