INDUSTRY

Genomatica, Inc., a leading computational systems biology company focused on metabolism research, announced today it has entered into a collaboration and license agreement with DSM, a global supplier of ingredients based on fermentation and enzyme technology to the chemical, pharmaceutical and food industries. Under the collaboration, DSM will license SimPheny, Genomatica's modeling and simulation platform to help guide DSM's research efforts for a broad application range, including strain engineering and process development. In addition, Genomatica and DSM will jointly develop and implement within SimPheny a metabolic model of a proprietary production organism key to DSM. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed, but include license fees and milestone payments. "We are excited to be working with DSM, one of the largest chemical and biotechnology companies in Europe," Commented Christophe H. Schilling, Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer at Genomatica. "DSM has recognized the power of model-driven metabolic research for bioprocessing and pharmaceutical research and we are delighted that DSM has selected SimPheny as a key component for a robust Bio-IT infrastructure within the DSM global organization." "Genomatica's SimPheny platform will be an important element in DSM's newly designed Genomics and Bio-IT infrastructure", says Dr. Bob Poldermans, Research Director at DSM Food Specialties. "We see a lot of opportunities for improving our biotechnological processes through an integrated use of the genomics disciplines. The powerful modeling capabilities of SimPheny will prove to be of great help in reaching our goals." In addition to licensing its technology to DSM, Genomatica announced in January it had entered into a license agreement with Kyowa Hakko, a major Japanese biotechnology company.