Dr. Chantal Brämer, chromatography expert at Evonik, in the lipid production laboratory in Hanau.

Digital edition 0/2025

World Health Day 2025

Every year on April 7, the United Nations celebrates World Health Day. The occasion is the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO) on April 7, 1948. Evonik also researches and produces in the field of health care and healing.

Let's go

A gloved hand holds up an ampoule labeled “cancer vaccine”

SDG

Fighting Cancer

One of the great hopes of cancer research is mRNA. With its help, it should be possible to fight cancer in a much more targeted way.

Hand of a researcher holding an ampoule with coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, in spotlight.

Polymers

Powerful Polymers

mRNA vaccines are helping to redirect the course of the pandemic, but their potential reaches way beyond COVID-19. Now Evonik has joined forces with Stanford University to develop a new polymer-based delivery tool that could carve the path for future mRNA applications

View of the Stanford campus and Hoover Tower, Palo Alto and Silicon Valley from the Stanford Dish Hills, California

Interview

What makes a good collaboration?

Andrea Engel coordinates a diverse team of scientists, technical and business experts working on the partnership with Stanford University. This is her view on cooperations in the field of R&D

Lipid Nanoparticles

rPEG lipids: Risk-free delivery

From coronavirus vaccines to medicines for cancer, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease—the applications for mRNA therapies are numerous and diverse. But how can the fragile RNA be delivered into cells effectively? A team of researchers from the University of Mainz in Germany and Evonik is working jointly to develop the perfect delivery system

Pharma

A Better Catch

Squalene enhances the effect of pharmaceutical products and plays an important role in research into new therapies. Until now this raw material was primarily extracted from shark livers. Evonik is now presenting an alternative product made from amaranth oil

Chart

An overview of vaccination methods

Vaccinations train the immune defenses against dangerous pathogens. Various processes have already been established for many decades. In the future, genetically based vaccines could join them—in the fight against the coronavirus and beyond

Children and adults stand in line and receive sugar cubes with polio vaccine.

Pharma

Milestones in the history of vaccination

For more than 200 years, vaccinations have been protecting people from diseases, some of them even life-threatening. This short video highlights some particularly significant breakthroughs.

Pharma

Transport without Side Effects

Researchers have been working for 120 years to provide drugs with good chemical packaging so that they can reach their targets in the human body. In the past, the active ingredients were protected by a layer of sugar in dragées. Today nanotechnology is opening up entirely new opportunities.

Microbiome

In Good Company

Microorganisms are essential for human digestion and many other bodily functions. Researchers at Evonik are investigating how probiotics influence the composition of the gut micro organisms inside human beings and animals

Microbiome

Intestinal Influencers

Diagram: What role do microorganisms play in the gut and how can we positively influence them?

Fermentation

From Jena to the World

In the laboratories of JeNaCell, bacteria are producing the material for a dressing that enables wounds to heal quickly and gently. This area of application is scheduled to grow further following the company’s acquisition by Evonik

Pharma

Full effect

The use of therapeutic proteins is spreading worldwide. While these active ingredients promise to bring about major medical advances, some have the problem that they are quickly broken down in the human body before they can release their full therapeutic effect. This might be offset by chains of polyethylene glycol, which Evonik manufactures at pharmaceutical quality

Opinion

Expensive health?

What is high-tech medicine worth? And what’s a proper orientation mark for its price? A debate between the Brusselsbased biotech lobbyist Nathalie Moll and Dr. Carlos Correa, head of a think tank in Geneva that represents the interests of developing countries

Foresight

Are phages the new antibiotics?

How can harmful bacteria be combated when antibiotics are powerless? The bacteriaeating viruses known as phages have the potential to save countless human lives. This therapy has actually been well known for a long time, but the knowledge was lost in the West after World War II. It could become very important for a healthy future