Kathleen M. Roberts, “How to Make Friends and Win EPA Approvals: tips for biobased chemicals,” Biofuels Digest, May 28, 2014.

In last week’s Special Report on Scale-up in Industrial Biotechnology, the Digest noted that a consistent lesson shared by leading biotech heavyweights at the BIO World Congress scale-up session is to “avoid an afterthought approach to regulatory compliance.” As luck and good scheduling would have it, after lunch on the same day, savvy conference-goers got up-close-and-personal with two senior U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulators and a seasoned company executive involved with biobased chemicals at a session titled “Commercializing Renewable Chemicals and Biobased Products: The Importance of Successfully and Efficiently Navigating the Regulatory Process.” This article highlights the top tips for gaining EPA regulatory approval shared by EPA’s Dr. Tracy Williamson and Dr. David Widawsky at the session.