Bio-based chemicals: China is in the lead but it is early days
Chemicals are the canary in the coalmine of the biomanufacturing revolution.
At the end of this post, you'll find an initial list of bio-produced chemicals as of 2025. This list is a first cut — compiled from various reports, company disclosures, our own expertise, and AI tools. It’s not perfect, and there may be gaps or inaccuracies. If you spot anything missing or incorrect, please let us know. We’ll be updating the list for a more comprehensive report later this year.
After our recent piece on China’s bold move to build 20 new bio-based scale-up facilities — and our analysis that biomanufacturing has rocketed to the top tier of China’s tech priorities — we got hit with a fantastic question:
So, where are things currently at? What is China and the world already doing with bio-based production?
Great question. Bio-based production is a massive field, touching everything from fuels to fabrics. But today, we’re zooming in on chemicals — one of biotech’s most obvious (and promising) industrial applications.
We are focused on companies already producing commercially, not promising early-stage start ups.
Here’s the blunt truth: outside of biopharma, the global market for bio-based chemicals is still tiny. Only a few dozen of these are commercially viable right now. To put that in perspective, there are somewhere between 40,000 and 350,000 chemicals sold around the world. Of those, just 6,000 make up 99% of sales. So yes — a few dozen biologically-made ones barely move the needle.
But, global chemical production needs to change because it is horrific for the environment and mostly sourced from fossil fuels. More importantly, the country/companies that can lead on bio-based chemical manufacturing will be primed to lead the broader biomanufacturing revolution.
China is starting to take a clear lead in large-scale bio-based production. There is of course significant production elsewhere. The US and Brazil dominate ethanol production. And there remains production of bio-based chemicals in Asia and Europe. But China has significant - often dominant - production of the economically viable bio-produced chemicals.
Some of this progress builds on long-established technologies, such as glutamic acid, which was first biologically synthesized in 1909. However, Chinese companies are also rapidly advancing in newer bio-based methods, an area that was traditionally led by Europe. Meanwhile, Europe’s chemical industry — both bio-based and petrochemical — has been facing a prolonged challenging period (due to cheaper production in Asia).
To put it in baseball terms: we’re only at the bottom of the first inning. China has taken an early and significant lead, but there’s still a long game ahead.
Below are some key observations on which countries lead in which product and the full table is below.
📌 Key Observations
Bioethanol and amino acids dominate in both volume and bio-based market share.
China is the world leader in amino acid fermentation and citric acid.
Brazil and the U.S. are key for high-volume biofuels and PLA.
Europe leads in niche chemicals like levulinic acid and bio-BDO.
Some promising chemicals (e.g. bio-butadiene, bio-adipic acid) are still in pilot or early commercial stages with uncertain scaling timelines.
📌Key bio-based chemical production occurring globally
If you want the original sheet with all the links and the background reports that we used, you can find them here. The datawrapper version below is easier to wrangle in Substack.