Corvay was founded in 2006, before that the company was called BioRegioN, founded as a GmbH in 2002. Since 1996, co-founder and later sole owner Albrecht Läufer, together with a large network of academia, industry and associations, had represented the city triangle Braunschweig-Göttingen-Hannover in the Bioregio competition of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Cluster management was the main business until 2010; numerous networking events were successfully held and almost 100 company start-ups were actively supported on behalf of the state. From 2006, consulting for biotechnology companies on a private sector basis was added, hence the renaming to Corvay. From 2008, consulting was followed by interim management: business development for Rhein Biotech, Düsseldorf, and development management for Direvo IBT, Cologne.

An exciting phase began in 2011. Building on the experience gained in international management at Solvay Pharma, Solvay Enzymes and Rütgerswerke, China and India increasingly came into focus. As Regional Director for a region spanning Canada, the Middle East, South Africa, Asia and Australia, and later co-founder and CEO of Vakzine Projekt Management GmbH, Läufer was also a member of various associations, VFA, DIB and finally BIO Deutschland, the latter to this day. He became spokesman for biotechnology within the German-Chinese working group established between the BMWi and the NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission) to promote cooperation on health and biotechnology.

Market research for a Chinese biotechnology company that produces long-chain dicarboxylic acids on a large scale led to a subsidiary, now called Corvay Specialty Chemicals, which is now well established in Europe as a trading company for the di-acids DC10 (sebacic acid), DC11 (undecanedioic acid), DC12 (dodecanedioic acid), DC13 (tridecanedioic acid) and DC14 (tetradecanedioic acid). We have recently expanded our trading business to include vitamin D3 for food and animal feed as well as specialty enzymes.

The development management at Direvo resulted in the founding of BluCon Biotech GmbH in Cologne; the investors in Direvo had decided not to pursue the Blucon® issue any further and commissioned Läufer to exploit the know-how. The highly innovative topic was still in the laboratory at the time, and unfortunately no money could be found for it in Europe. But there was in China, and so Läufer founded Blucon Biotech in Cologne in 2017 together with his business partner Markus Fehr. An investor from Hangzhou later became involved and founded Depei Biotechnologies there; both companies are managed by Läufer. The first pilot test for the production of lactic acid from cellulose on a cbm scale took place in 2019. The first production plant is due to be built from 2022.

The next offshoot of Corvay was Corvay Bioproducts GmbH, founded in Halle at the end of 2018, together with the company of Joachim Schulze, also a close business partner. Once again, a consulting topic turned into a project, and then a company: Corvay Bioproducts develops processes for the production of specialty products for the chemical industry from renewable raw materials and then wants to bring these into production with other investors.

Last but not least, Corvay Consult was established in 2021 to bundle all consulting services.

Corvay, this is today

• Corvay Consult, for management consulting, project development, development of corporate strategies
• Corvay Specialty Chemicals, for trading in specialty chemicals
• Corvay Bioproducts, for developing innovative bio-processes for the circular economy