Biocatalysis

Following a recent going concern warning by its auditors, Verenium has now announced that John Malloy has resigned. Previously Malloy was Executive VP of Biofuels.

Correcting our April 1 post on Proteus and Agro Industrie Recherches et Developpements (ARD), the partnership is focused on improving the “bioproduction of natural origin molecules” and not cellulases. Proteus had in fact previously announced an agreement with Syngenta to develop improved enzymes for cellulosic ethanol production.

The goal of developing improved enzymes to increase the efficiency of generating sugar feedstocks for green chemical production continues to attract new players. French biotech company Proteus announced a new partnership with Agro Industrie Recherches et Developpements (ARD) to convert non-food agricultural products into higher value compounds. Proteus has a technology platform based on its L-Shuffling methods for creating diversity for laboratory evolution of enzymes. ARD is a research and development center for agro-industry groups in France specializing in non-food applications. This new partnership joins an already crowded field that includes Novozymes, Danisco-Genencor, Shell-Codexis, and BP-Verenium just to name a few.

An Oklahoma trucker has been charged with dumping about 500 gallons of ethanol in a ditch alongside U.S. 60, according to Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster’s office. Read the story here.

At World Biofuels Markets, Novozymes global marketing manager Cindy Bryant credited the company’s Cellic enzyme product family for “achieving the best cost/performance ratio seen so far” and helping to enable cellulosic ethanol pioneers to make cellulosic ethanol a reality. Bryant said that the company expects enzyme costs for cellulosic ethanol to come down to the $0.50-$1.50 per gallon range by 2010, down from $2.00-$4.75 per gallon in 2007.

Note the wording: she is talking about cellulase enzyme cost only, not the overall cost of producing ethanol.