Herbalife, IIT Madras Launch India’s First Plant Cell Fermentation Centre of Excellence

Herbalife India and IIT Madras have signed an agreement to establish the Herbalife–IIT Madras Centre of Excellence on Plant Cell Fermentation Technology at IIT Madras Research Park, in what the partners describe as India’s first dedicated Centre of Excellence in this field. Announced on April 16, 2026, the facility is positioned as a translational research hub focused on plant cell-based fermentation for health and wellness applications.

The new centre marks the next phase of a collaboration that began in February 2025, when Herbalife India and IIT Madras launched the Herbalife-IITM Plant Cell Fermentation Technology Lab under Herbalife’s CSR initiative. That earlier lab was framed around sustainable production of herbal raw materials and phytochemicals, with a focus on nutraceuticals, cosmeceuticals and Ayush-linked applications. The 2026 Centre of Excellence now takes that collaboration further by shifting toward a larger R&D, innovation and entrepreneurship platform.

Plant cell fermentation is a biotechnology process in which living plant cells are grown in a controlled bioreactor environment to produce useful compounds such as phytochemicals, herbal biomass, and bioactive extracts with greater consistency and year-round reliability. Unlike familiar food fermentation, which usually relies on microbes like yeast or bacteria, this approach uses plant cell cultures outside the whole plant under tightly managed conditions such as nutrients, temperature, pH, and sterility. In practical terms, it allows researchers and industry to make high-value plant-based ingredients more sustainably, with better control over purity, quality, and scalability for applications in nutraceuticals, cosmeceuticals, and wellness products.

According to the announcement, the CoE will work on the sustainable and scalable production of herbal biomass, enriched herbal extracts and high-value phytochemicals using plant cell fermentation. The centre is expected to combine advanced upstream cultivation systems with downstream processing and metabolomics platforms, while also supporting technology transfer, industry collaboration, academic partnerships, skill development, intellectual property creation and startup spin-offs.

The partners say the centre will serve students, researchers, entrepreneurs and professionals in the herbal products sector, while helping strengthen India’s capabilities in commercial plant cell fermentation. The facility is expected to begin operations in June 2026, with the broader goal of supporting greener production systems, improving access to high-quality plant-derived wellness ingredients and reducing dependence on imported technologies and inputs.

Reference:

https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/herbalife-india-and-iit-madras-sign-a-landmark-agreement-to-establish-indias-first-centre-of-excellence-on-plant-cell-fermentation-302744885.html
https://www.herbalife.com/en-in/about-herbalife/press-room/press-releases/herbalife-india-collaborates-with-iit-madras-to-launch-plant-cell-fermentation-technology-lab
https://pctlab.github.io/PCTIITM/