Will Amyr Time return?

April 6, 2014 |

amyr-time

Amyris, our 2012-13 “Comeback of the Year” winner continues to make strides — Amyris to begin selling biofene online — Inks R&D pact with BASF, world’s largest chemical company.

Back in 2011, Amyris was flying high. A big success with the IPO, scale-up eagerly awaited — coveted for its transformational technoogy and its early move to Brazil and the low-cost sugars therein.

It was Amyr Time, the hour of “U Can’t Touch This”, bio-wise.

But then, the narrative soured, when the scale-up timetable projected in its celebrated IPO failed to materialize at anywhere the pace expected. Amyris went right into the Dogg House. The company’s stock, which traded as high as $27.00 at the height of Amyr Time, went down into the $2 range.

A flurry of deal flow

But the company regrouped, recharged its balance sheet, refocused the strategy — and the stock has been starting to climb out of the doldrums. It passed $5.00 briefly before settling back into the $4s — and the market cap is back north of $300 million. Last week we reported on a strategic investment from Kuraray. Later in the week, collaborative research and development agreement with BASF. Under the agreement, Amyris will use its strain engineering technology to develop a microorganism capable of producing a target molecule identified by BASF.

“Through this new collaboration, Amyris will seek to develop strains capable of producing a relevant target molecule for BASF, which could help performance and competitiveness with the traditional sources for that molecule. Amyris’s synthetic biology and strain engineering technology platform and BASF’s capabilities and superior market leadership in the chemicals industry are complementary, and, I believe, our two companies can build on this initial effort to lead the way to innovative renewable chemicals produced through industrial biotechnology,” said John Melo, President & CEO of Amyris.

Online sales of farnesene

Latest news? Online sales of biofene — Making Farnesene Widely Available to Accelerate Development of New Renewable Products and Applications. Selling in as little as 1 kilogram lot sizes (about a quarter of a gallon). Biofene (trans-beta-Farnesene, E,E-Farnesene, CAS 18794-84-8) is its signature 15 carbon, long-chain, branched, unsaturated hydrocarbon manufactured by the fermentation of plant-sugars using Amyris’s engineered microbes.

“This innovative approach is complementary to our current strategy for growing existing products – such as our Neossance Squalane, renewable fuels, base oils and monomers for the tire industry, all of which are produced from our farnesene,” concluded Melo. All this marketed as a series of “No Compromise” renewable ingredients in cosmetics, flavors and fragrances, polymers, lubricants and consumer products, and also as No Compromise renewable diesel and jet fuel.

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