KitoZyme's innovative work originated in eight years of research at the University of Liège in Belgium. This research focused on a pioneering procedure for extracting chitin from a non-animal source and transforming it into a substance called chitosan.
Marie-France Versali, who has been running the Chitin/Chitosan Research Group (GRCC) at the University's Department of Life Sciences/Molecular Biology and Vegetal Biotechnology since 1992, was responsible for founding the Chitosan project.

Set up as a university spin-off company in late 2000, KitoZyme began by developing production processes for a number of biopolymers and adapting these processes to industrial scale production. This became a reality in 2004 when pilot equipment was installed at its premises.

All of KitoZyme's biopolymers are polysaccharides consisting of D-glucosamine and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine units.

The KitoZyme team is also working to develop new products such as chitin-glucan and to adapt its processes to new fungal sources.

KitoZyme's pilot vegetal allowed volumes up to 40 kg per production run to be achieved. KitoZyme products could also be manufactured at the plant for use in safety studies and performance studies (to meet the needs of target markets), for developing a rigorous quality control system and for meeting the first customer orders.

For the first time ever, it has been proved that producing biopolymers from fungal sources is a feasible undertaking.