Amyris entered into a contract manufacturing agreement with Tate & Lyle Ingredients Americas, an affiliate of Tate & Lyle. Under this arrangement, Tate & Lyle will produce farnesene at its facilities in Decatur, IL. The produced farnesene will be owned and distributed by Amyris.
This arrangement with Tate & Lyle expands Amyris’ contracted production capacity. Amyris entered into a similar agreement in June with a Biomin facility in Piracicaba, Brazil. Amyris expects to begin production of farnesene at the Biomin facility in the first half of 2011.
Amyris is using contract manufacturing capacity to produce farnesene at commercial scale to supply customer demand in advance of the start up of Amyris’ first commercial plant under its joint venture with Grupo São Martinho.
“We are excited to be collaborating with Tate & Lyle to accelerate our commercial production of farnesene,” says John Melo, CEO of Amyris. “Beyond supporting our commercial production targets in 2011, we believe that this partnership will allow us to leverage Tate & Lyle’s world-leading expertise in aseptic fermentation operations as we ramp our industrial scale.”