Aug. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Diversa Corporation (Nasdaq: DVSA - news) today announced it has signed an agreement with Celanese Ltd., an affiliate of Celanese AG (NYSE: CZ - news), for an evaluation project to discover and develop microorganisms capable of producing chemical products at rates substantially higher than traditional microbial strains.
``Celanese has identified partnering with biotechnology leaders as an important part of our strategy for identifying new raw materials, processes and products,'' stated Dr. Graham Mott, Celanese Ltd. Director of Technology Acquisition. ``Diversa is the leader in discovering gene pathways from environmental DNA and they have the broadest suite of evolution technologies. This combination makes them the ideal partner to optimize the function of entire cells.''
Under the terms of the agreement, Celanese will fund discovery and optimization at Diversa and pay royalties on the sale of products utilizing improved strains. In return, Celanese will have exclusive rights to commercialize strains discovered or developed within specified commodity and specialty chemical applications. Bioconversion applications use biological systems, instead of chemicals, to convert raw materials, by-products and waste into valuable end products. Diversa's proprietary whole cell optimization technologies involve genetically engineering the metabolic processes of the entire cell to perform the desired reaction.
``This collaboration with Celanese is an important opportunity to demonstrate the significant commercial value of whole cell optimization technologies,'' stated Jay M. Short, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Diversa Corporation. ``Diversa is pleased to be working with a global leader such as Celanese to produce high value products with innovative processes.'' |
