EMERYVILLE, Calif. and SEATTLE, Sept. 9, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Amyris, Inc. (Nasdaq:AMRS), the industrial bioscience company, and IDRI (Infectious Disease Research Institute), a Seattle-based non-profit research organization that uses biotechnology to create new diagnostics, drugs and vaccines, today announced an agreement to explore testing and development of an Amyris material for use in adjuvant formulations, which enhance the effectiveness of vaccines. Amyris will provide its materials for testing new adjuvant formulations, and the organizations will work together to explore their use to improve the global supply of important vaccines.
Disruptive Technology to Save Lives and Save on Drug and Vaccine Development Costs
Amyris has demonstrated success in creating new ingredients for multiple markets that disrupts the status quo, reduces development cost and speeds product development while providing stable, low-cost supply alternatives. This success has resulted in leading global companies selecting Amyris as a collaboration partner to solve their difficult product development and supply issues. Today, this disruptive technology is well suited toward enhancing development, and increasing supply, of life-saving drugs and vaccines, all while reducing development costs1.
The partnership with IDRI is led by a common goal to increase both efficacy and global availability of vaccines to assist people in need throughout the world. To that end, as a non-profit biotech drug and vaccine development institute, IDRI uses its proprietary technologies to develop critically needed products to address a wide range of infectious diseases. The combination of Amyris and IDRI technologies could be a powerful and scalable approach to the development and large scale production of novel, cost-effective global health products.
“With our early history in using innovative microbial engineering and screening technologies to convert plant-sugars into an alternative, lower-cost, stable supply of artemisinin, an effective anti-malarial, we developed advanced methods for solving difficult drug-development problems to save lives,” said Joel Cherry, President of Research & Development at Amryis. “This experience coupled with advances we’ve made since then, enables us to harness the power of our HI-RYSE™ (Hyper-Integration for Rapid Yeast Strain Engineering) technology to speed molecule development from concept to commercial scale. As a result, we believe we are well positioned to work with important organizations like IDRI to create innovative ingredients for pharmaceutical applications. Simply put, we can help our partners save on drug development costs and improve worldwide drug availability.”
“We’re pleased to join with Amyris in furthering our efforts in developing new adjuvant formulations for vaccines, and ensuring their accessibility globally,” said Darrick Carter, Ph.D. and Vice President, Adjuvant Technology at IDRI. “Advancements in our adjuvant portfolio have been enabled by the generous support of governmental agencies and philanthropic organizations, and we are excited to collaborate with a leading company like Amyris in seeking to further expand on advancements in this critical area.”
About Amyris
Amyris is the integrated renewable products company that is enabling the world’s leading brands to achieve sustainable growth. Amyris applies its innovative bioscience solutions to convert plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules, specialty ingredients and consumer products. The company is delivering its No Compromise® products in focused markets, including specialty and performance chemicals, fragrance ingredients, and cosmetic emollients. More information about the company is available at www.amyris.com.
About IDRI
As a non-profit global health organization, IDRI (Infectious Disease Research Institute) takes a comprehensive approach to combat infectious diseases, combining the high-quality science of a research organization with the product development capabilities of a biotech company to create new diagnostics, drugs and vaccines. IDRI combines passion for improving human health with the understanding that it is not just what our scientists know about disease, but what we do to change its course that will have the greatest impact. Founded in 1993, IDRI has 125 employees headquartered in Seattle with nearly 100 partners/collaborators around the world. For more information, visit www.idri.org.
Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements, and any statements other than statements of historical facts could be deemed to be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements regarding future events (such as development of materials for pharmaceutical applications, the ability of HI-RYSE technology to speed and reduce costs of new-molecule development, and benefits of Amyris-developed pharmaceutical materials), that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and actual results and future events may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties, including those associated with any delays or failures in development, production and commercialization of products, liquidity and ability to fund capital expenditures, Amyris’s reliance on third parties to achieve its goals, and other risks detailed in the “Risk Factors” section of Amyris’s quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed on August 10, 2015. Amyris disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
Amyris and the Amyris logo and HI-RYSE are registered trademarks of Amyris, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
1 According to a 2014 Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development study, developing a new prescription medicine that gains market approval is a process often lasting longer than a decade with an estimated cost of $2.6 billion.
CONTACT: Peter DeNardo Director, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications Amyris, Inc. +1 (510) 740-7481 investor@amyris.com pr@amyris.com Lee Schoentrup Director of Communications IDRI +1 (206) 858-6064 lee.schoentrup@idri.org
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