San Diego, California, USA
December 10, 2018
Nucelis, the microbial strain development subsidiary of agriculture biotech company Cibus, today announced a partnership agreement with Nanjing Darwingenetech Co, Ltd (Darwin) to jointly identify and enter into agreements with China based customers for Nucelis’ proprietary gene-editing and advanced fermentation expertise to improve fermentation yields and reduce costs.
In collaboration with this partnership with Darwin, Nucelis also finalized the signing of its first customer agreement. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“We are pleased to be business development partners with Nucelis and to have signed our first customer agreement,” said Jim Xu, President of Darwin and Chairman of Jiangsu Zenji Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
Jack He, Senior Manager of Darwin, added: “Nucelis has a very valuable and differentiated portfolio of technology and services to assist Chinese manufacturers of food ingredients, animal feed, and other products made via fermentation.”
“We are delighted to partner with Darwin as we build our business in China, where we see a large and growing opportunity in the world’s largest market for products made using fermentation,” said Sean O’Connor, Ph.D., President and CEO of Nucelis. “Our innovative and proprietary strain development and fermentation expertise are an ideal fit for potential customers in the region, as evidenced by the signing of our first customer agreement.”
Nucelis is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cibus, a biotechnology company with advanced technologies to precisely target and direct a plant’s natural gene-editing processes. The Nucelis Accelerated Strain Advancement Platform (ASAP™) is a specialty ingredient development platform that combines the precision of the Cibus suite of gene-editing technologies, the Rapid Trait Development System (RTDS™), with advanced fermentation and pilot scale facilities and experience, and proprietary downstream, and purification processes. This approach enables Nucelis to efficiently develop and deliver high-value, performance-focused, non-transgenic specialty ingredients for partners in the nutrition, personal care, flavor and fragrance markets, and for future applications in Ag biologicals, active pharmaceutical ingredients (API’s), human health and animal health.
ABOUT NUCELIS AND CIBUS
Cibus is a biotechnology company using advanced technologies to develop desirable plant traits for the global seed industry by precisely editing a plant’s genes without the integration of foreign genetic material. This technique accelerates natural breeding that has been a staple of farming for thousands of years and has been classified in certain key agricultural markets as not subject to GMO regulation. Cibus has launched its first commercial canola product, Falco™, and is developing a pipeline of beneficial traits in other crops that it plans to license, including healthier oil quality, disease resistance, and herbicide tolerance. Cibus has established crop platforms in canola, rice, flax, potato, and is now developing platforms in wheat, corn, soybean and peanut. The broad applicability of Cibus’ technologies is highlighted by Nucelis, which extends the company’s trait development program to microorganisms, including yeast, bacteria and algae, for the food, flavor and fragrance and personal care markets. The company has subsidiaries in Europe and North America and a state-of-the-art research and development center in San Diego.
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