PEORIA MAGAZINE September 2023

TURNER CENTER HONOREE

INNOVATION OF THE YEAR

Midwest Bioprocessing Center is putting Peoria on the national skin-care map with its iActive sunscreen line

BY LISA COON PHOTOS BY RON JOHNSON

A smile spreads across Dave Demirjian’s face when asked why a Chicago-area busi nessman would start up a bioprocessing technology company in Peoria. “People always ask, ‘Why the heck in Peoria?’” said Demirjian, the owner and president of Midwest Bioprocessing Center (MBC) at Peoria NEXT who splits his time between Chicago and a home in Oak Run, near Galesburg. The reason is that Peoria is the birthplace of bioprocessing technology, said Demirjian. With its early history as a fermentation and bioprocessing technology hub, both as the one-time whiskey capital of the world and as home to the USDA’s National Center for Agri cultural Utilization Research (Peoria Ag Lab) with its role in the mass production of penicillin, Demirjian says the question should instead be, “Why not Peoria? “There is a huge amount of biopro cessing and fermentation in the area, and that’s what we do,” said the 62-year old Demirjian, who brags a PhD in ge netics from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Michigan. “It’s a very cost-effective place to work … and there’s access to the USDA lab, which is a great resource.”

David Demirjiam, Ph.D. President of Midwest Bioprocessing Center

38 SEPTEMBER 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE