by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) …In synthetic biology these days, there are the Big Wave surfers too — companies like Amyris, Solazyme, Gevo, Genomatica, Verdezyne, Rivertop Renewables, Myriant, Segetis, BioAmber, Cobalt, Green Biologics, Butamax, LanzaTech, INEOS Bio, LS9, Elevance, and Sapphire Energy, among others.
Not for them the safe markets in high-value biopharma, where you can drain and scrub out the fermenters any time there is a misstep, because you are making handfuls of product for zillions of dollars.
…But their real names are adipic acid, succinic acid, BDO, paraxylene, dielectric acids, isobutanol, ethanol, and drop-in fuels.
Watching this class of technologies come along — well, it has something in common with watching a group take on the 70-footers at Ghost Tree for the first time. The wave looks impossibly big, the surfer impossibly small. While the rewards are immense, one fall can be fatal.
…(W)e have a new leader on the board, in Genomatica.
This week, the company confirmed what had been rumored for some time amongst the fermeterati — their massive project, producing biobased BDO (1.4, butanediol) in the big 600,000 liter fermenters at a DuPont Tate & Lyle plant in Tennessee, had come off without a hitch.
Think of it. 5 million pounds in a five-week run of continuous fermentations, probably 50 in all. Street value, not far shy of $5 million — all of it quickly sold to customers. Arguably more product than all the others in this class of technologies coming through produced all year, combined. READ MORE