Manfred Kircher is chairman of the board of CLIB2021 (www.clib2021.com), an association of companies, academic institutes and investors fostering industrial biotechnology. The consortium's more than 60 members include Germany's who's who in the chemical industry - Altana, Bayer MS, Bayer TS, Evonik Industries, Lanxess, Henkel and Cognis - , SMEs like Artes, bitop and Protagen and the universities Bielefeld, Dortmund and Düsseldorf. CLIB2021 pushes biotechnology by initiating and financing trendsetting R&D through partnering. Dr. Kircher is deputed by Evonik Industries AG where he is in charge of business venture biotechnology in Creavis - developing strategic options for Evonik's's Science to Business Center Biotechnology. Before he managed in 2001 - 2004 Degussa's investment in Burrill & Company - a San Francisco based life sciences venture capital bank, Dr. Kircher brings along more than 25 years of experience in the field of investments, biotechnology R&D, production and project development. He received his Ph.D at the Institute of Microbiology at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-University in Frankfurt/Germany in the area of molecular yeast genetics and joined Degussa in 1981. After organizing a biotechnological r&d department in Degussa's feed additive business unit he was in charge of microbial strain development since 1984. Later he was co-building Fermas, an international joint venture for amino acid production in Slovakia. Since 1996, Dr. Kircher was director of biotechnology project development in Degussa's R&D center Hanau/Germany.