Royal DSM to Make Equity Investment in Amyris

09 May 2017 --- Amyris, Inc., the industrial bioscience company, and Koninklijke DSM N.V. (Royal DSM), have announced that they have agreed for DSM to make an equity investment in Amyris. At the same time, the companies will enter into a development cooperation focused on products for the global health and nutrition markets (including vitamins and other nutritional ingredients).

Amyris’ technology supports DSM’s strategic markets in health, nutrition, and materials as well as a growing consumer shift to (bio-) natural-like products derived from sustainable sources. For Amyris, DSM’s channels and market access and keen understanding in selecting the right products for the animal nutrition, human nutrition, and consumer health markets provide strategic value.

Speaking to FoodIngredientsFirst, Steve Hufton, DSM Media Relations said: “This long-term equity investment is intended to establish a long-term relationship between DSM and Amyris. It gives DSM preferential access to Amyris’ biotech platforms and competences, which are complementary with DSM’s own widely recognized capabilities and expertise, thus further strengthening our position, especially in products for the global health and nutrition markets, including vitamins and other nutritional ingredients. We believe that biotech has a crucial role to play in enabling sustainable systems for food, feed, fuel and chemical feedstocks as we transition from the fossil-age to the (bio-)renewable age using sustainable, fermentation-based processes.”

Equity Investment
DSM has agreed to make an initial equity investment in Amyris of US$25 million, translating into a shareholding of ~12%. Subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, DSM may invest an additional US$25 million in Amyris. The first tranche is expected to close on Thursday, 11 May 2017, with a second tranche, if approved by DSM’s Managing Board, expected to close within 90 days of the closing of the first tranche. As part of this investment, DSM will gain one board seat upon the closing of each tranche.

As part of the agreement, DSM and Amyris have agreed to focus on a number of short- to medium-term product development & production opportunities in vitamins and other nutritional ingredients.

“We are very excited about DSM’s strategic focus in health and nutrition markets and its commitment to sustainable sourcing and production of better-performing products,” said John Melo, Amyris President & CEO. “The Amyris technology platform and potential synergy can lead to significant cost improvements for DSM while accelerating Amyris’s market access. We expect this will lead to incremental revenue in 2017, growing annually based on the number of products we develop in our partnership and our pace of delivery.”

“Amyris has a unique yeast-based strain engineering platform that is very complementary to DSM’s capabilities in this area and will create great synergy with DSM’s know-how in fermentation, downstream process development and large-scale manufacturing,” said Chris Goppelsroeder, President & CEO of DSM Nutritional Products. “Working closely together with Amyris and leveraging DSM’s route-to-market, will accelerate our innovation towards cost-effective, fermentation-based processes for both existing and new products.”

by Elizabeth Green

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