| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Traded as | NASDAQ: CDXS |
| Industry | industrial biotechnology, biobased chemicals, advanced biofuels, pharmaceuticals, carbon capture |
| Founded | 2002 |
| Headquarters | Redwood City, CA, U.S. |
| Key people | Alan Shaw, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Baruch, Chairman of the Board David Anton, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President, Process Development and Manufacturing Joseph Sarret, M.D., J.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer Douglas Sheehy, J.D., Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary Robert Lawson, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer |
| Revenue | US$107.1 million (FY 2010) |
| Employees | 300 (as of March 2011)[1] |
| Website | Codexis, Inc. |
Codexis, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDXS) is an industrial biotechnology company that develops customized biocatalysts (enzymes) and microorganisms used in sustainable chemicals, biofuels and pharmaceutical processes. Codexis has partners such as Shell, Merck and Pfizer.
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Codexis is working with Shell to develop renewable transportation fuels from non-food sources. In June 2011, Shell contributed its approximately 16% stake in Codexis to a joint venture with Cosan, one of the world's largest sugar and ethanol producers.[2] [3] The joint venture, called Raizen, is one of the world's largest biofuels operations, with a capacity of more than 2 billion liters a year.[4] In September 2011, Codexis announced a joint development agreement to develop an improved process for generating ethanol from sugarcane, so-called "first generation ethanol," using Codexis' CodeEvolver™ directed evolution technology platform.[5] The parties anticipate pilot production at Raizen's Bonfim mill. In October 2011, Codexis named Achilles Antonio Clement, a former DuPont executive, as the head of Codexis' operations in Brazil.[6]
Codexis is using its work in biofuels to develop sustainable sources for the 2 million ton detergent alcohol market.[7] Detergent alcohols go into household products such as shampoo and conditioner. Approximately 70% of detergent alcohols are derived from palm kernel oil. The remaining 30% is derived from petroleum. The rising price and price volatility of palm oil and crude oil combined with environmental concerns have prompted consumer product companies to seek out sustainable alternatives.[8] In July 2011, Codexis and Chemtex, a global technology and engineering company wholly owned by Italy's Gruppo Mossi & Ghisolfi ("M&G Group"), announced a broad collaboration to develop and produce sustainable detergent alcohols for use in the household products market.[9] Under the terms of the agreement, Codexis will have exclusive rights to Chemtex’s PROESA™ technology for the production of detergent alcohols. Pilot production will take place at Chemtex's R&D facility in Rivalta, Italy. Larger scale demonstrations will take place at Chemtex's 40,000 metric ton (88 million pound) per year cellulosic ethanol plant in Crescentino, Italy, that is expected to be operational in 2012.
Codexis customers include major companies such as Merck, Pfizer, and Teva that use Codexis' custom biocatalysts to create more sustainable, less costly manufacturing processes for new and existing drugs. Codexis' biocatalysts are being used in the manufacturing process for the cholesterol-fighting drug Lipitor and are in development for the manufacturing of the diabetes drug Januvia. Codexis won the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2006 for its work on a building block of Lipitor[10] and a second time with Merck in 2010 for its work on the active ingredient in Januvia.[11]
Codexis is developing its technology for carbon capture. The first application is for use in improving the efficiency of capturing CO2 emissions from coal-fired power stations. This work is funded in part by a $4.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's ARPA-E program.[12] Codexis is also working with Alcoa to develop custom enzymes for converting bauxite residue, a primary byproduct of aluminum manufacturing, into beneficial byproducts.[13] In August 2011, Codexis announced important technical progress in its carbon capture program at the U.S. Department of Energy/National Energy Technology Laboratory’s CO2 Capture Technology Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA.[14] Data showed that Codexis was able to improve the performance of carbonic anhydrase (“CA”) enzymes by about two million-fold over natural forms of the enzyme and that the evolved enzymes are functional and stable in relatively inexpensive, energy efficient solvents for 24 hours at temperatures greater than 90° C.
Codexis' proprietary technology called CodeEvolver is directed evolution technology. It is based on the concept that natural genetic mutation and selection can be accelerated in the research laboratory to obtain specific improvements in the function of single proteins and multiprotein pathways. CodeEvolver combines DNA shuffling and bioinformatics with systems biology to create new biocatalysts.
Willem P.C. Stemmer, the inventor of DNA shuffling technology upon which Codexis was founded, and Frances H. Arnold, received the National Academy of Engineering's Charles Stark Draper Prize for their individual work on directed evolution technology.[15]
Based in Redwood City, CA, Codexis was incorporated in 2002. The company went public in April 2010 on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol (NASDAQ: CDXS).
In addition to its headquarters in California, Codexis has additional offices in Brazil, Hungary, India and Singapore.