"One reason why I'm thrilled by innovation is pure fear," Alfred Oberholz confesses. "The life cycles of chemical products are decreasing faster and faster. Unless we constantly refill our pipeline, big chunks of our business will break away and immigrate to emerging countries." His turn of phrase is colored by his native Ruhr dialect, and his philosophy reveals that he is both rooted in the soil and widely traveled: "Research turns money into knowledge. Innovation turns knowledge into money. The more you reinvest in research, the stronger your business will become."
Some seven years ago, Oberholz began to see biotechnology as a serious business opportunity. Even in the dawning post-genome era this was not self-evident to most chemists—and Oberholz's insight would make a real difference because he served as the Chief Technology Officer of Evonik, one of the world's biggest specialty chemicals companies which had already been ...
