Amyris, Firmenich enter joint development agreement

Nov 11 2010

Amyris, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMRS) announced today that it has entered into a collaboration and joint development agreement with Firmenich, the largest privately-owned fragrance and flavor company, based in Geneva, Switzerland. This is the first agreement for Amyris in the fragrance and flavor industry and provides an opportunity to add higher-value ingredients to our expanding product portfolio. Under the agreement, Firmenich will fund technical development at Amyris to produce a sustainable, cost-effective and reliable source of a key ingredient for the fragrance and flavor market. Under the agreement, Amyris will manufacture and supply product to Firmenich, Firmenich will market and distribute the product, and the parties will share in the economic value derived. The agreement between the parties also grants worldwide exclusive commercialization rights in fragrance and flavor to Firmenich for the ingredient, which will be manufactured by Amyris. In addition, Firmenich has an option to collaborate with Amyris to develop a second ingredient.

“This collaboration with Amyris demonstrates our commitment to innovation and sustainability. As an industry leader in research and innovation, we seek and capture breakthrough ideas from around the world”

"The fragrance and flavor market offers a significant additional opportunity for growth in our renewable chemicals business," said John Melo, CEO of Amyris. "We are excited to be partnering with Firmenich as we apply our technology to produce an expanded range of No Compromise® molecules."

"This collaboration with Amyris demonstrates our commitment to innovation and sustainability. As an industry leader in research and innovation, we seek and capture breakthrough ideas from around the world," said Patrick Firmenich, CEO of Firmenich. "Amyris's technology platform offers great potential to be a key source for sustainable and high-quality ingredients used in the fragrance and flavor market."

Amyris's synthetic biology platform creates living factories to produce specific, targeted molecules. Amyris's technology platform may be applied to produce an array of ingredients currently used in the fragrance and flavor industry. Amyris designs its No Compromise products to provide high-quality solutions from sustainable and reliable sources and at competitive prices. To date, Amyris has focused its technical and commercial efforts on Biofene® (Amyris-produced farnesene) and its related derivatives. This initiative expands the company's business beyond Biofene and demonstrates the flexibility of Amyris's platform technology.

SOURCE Amyris