Mascoma and NextFerm team up on yeast innovations for biofuels

In Canada, Mascoma LLC, a subsidiary of Lallemand Inc., and NextFerm Technologies signed a commercial joint development agreement to expand collaboration into the biofuels category. NextFerm is an Israeli biotech company that produces fermentation-derived ingredients for global food and feed industries.

Elzaphan Hotamm VP Global Marketing for NextFerm Technologies told FoodIngredientsFirst, “We are about to launch yeast-derived astaxanthin which we believe to have significant advantages over existing algae-based solutions. This agreement itself is a token of Mascoma’s appreciation of our technology and capabilities to deliver what we promise. Specifically, if this becomes successful, it will provide a significant revenue stream coming from the licensing of the technology to Lallemand.”

Dr. Tzafra Cohen, Co-founder and Vice President of R&D at NextFerm Technologies, told FoodIngredientsFirst, “The biofuel industry is constantly demanding higher efficiency and better cost performance. Thus, yeast performance under extreme conditions is highly important. Here, in this project as well as in our previous NextFreeze project, we will be isolating and then improving natural yeast strains with enhanced resistance to environmental pressure.”