Amyris announces new manufacturing plant to expand production of fragrance molecule
The Biofene product is used in a wide range of applications, including cosmetics and perfumes, and the expansion provides for focused use of the current Brotas industrial fermentation capacity to supply collaborators based on projected demand for the molecule through 2020.
Amyris says that expected demand will require new farnesene manufacturing capacity beyond the company’s current capacity at the plant, and that it is in active discussions with current collaborators and partners to provide financing for the project, with construction expected to start in the second half of 2016.
“After several years of application and product development activities in collaboration with our strategic partners, we’ve now transitioned to the commercialization phase of many applications,” says John Melo, Amyris President & CEO.
“We are very fortunate that many of our partnerships are focused on solving supply chain challenges by replacing current raw material sources with lower-cost, better-performing, sustainably sourced material. This is enabling us to grow our supply of farnesene into these markets at a faster rate than we expected.”
The company says it expects existing collaboration and supply agreements to generate over $200 million in revenue through 2020 from its flavours and fragrances partners, which includes the five largest fragrance houses in the world, and other industry leading companies.
Further growth
Melo adds that Amyris expects to have five or more high performance fragrance molecules scaled by the end of the year, combined with strong farnesene demand, and this has enabled the company to initiate this project.
“We are very excited for our Brazilian operation as this will result in our plant becoming one of the largest providers of flavours and fragrances ingredients to the world as we continue to execute and deliver contracted molecules to our partners,” he continues.
“This would not be possible without the excellent track record of our manufacturing and engineering teams’ ability to meet or exceed our partners’ manufacturing requirements at large scale.”
The Amyris Personal Care Business (Flavors, Fragrances, Food ingredients and Cosmetic Ingredients) is its largest and fastest-growing business, representing $25 million of 2015 revenue and is expected to contribute $40 million of 2016 revenue.
