Amyris responds to LAVVAN’s lawsuit filing, clarifies 3 points

In California, Amyris, Inc. responds to LAVVAN, Inc.’s press release related to its commencement of a lawsuit against Amyris for patent infringement and trade secret misappropriation and submitted this statement to clarify several points.

Amyris and LAVVAN entered into a Research, Collaboration and License Agreement in March 2019 valued at $300 million in milestone payments to be made by LAVVAN to Amyris along with a royalty arrangement based on LAVVAN’s commercial sales of designated biosynthetic cannabinoids. LAVVAN made a single payment of $10 million in 2019 for delivery of the first technical milestone.

Amyris wishes to clarify the following points:

1. Continued to deploy R&D resources to LAVVAN program: Amyris has been deploying its R&D resources in accordance with the RCL Agreement since the start of the collaboration program with LAVVAN and has continued to work toward the collaboration deliverables through 2020.
2. The excluded market: The RCL Agreement permits Amyris to conduct its development and commercialization efforts with regards to cannabinoids in the excluded market as defined under the RCL Agreement. Amyris will continue to exercise its rights to bring unique biosynthetic solutions to market within the boundaries of the RCL Agreement. Amyris will make the RCL Agreement, as amended, publicly available on a Form 8-K today.
3. 2020 revenue expectation not impacted: Amyris de-risked its 2020 sales revenue expectation by significantly reducing collaboration revenue anticipated from the RCL Agreement. Accordingly, Amyris does not expect a negative revenue impact for the balance of the year caused by the RCL Agreement.

The original press release from LAVVAN regarding the lawsuit can be found here.