The collaboration has focused on a family of structurally related ingredients, and up to this point, the focus of this collaboration has been pathway creation, strain improvement and application testing.
As a result of this latest announcement, both parties will now enter into discussions on how best to proceed to the next phase of product development for these ingredients, as part of their multi-year programme.
Evolva says the milestone payment does not change Evolva’s revenue guidance for 2015.
On-going collaboration
Evolva focuses on the development of functional ingredients that cannot sustainably or ethically be sourced from nature for mass-market commercial applications. Within the agreement, L’Oréal has exclusivity within cosmetics, whilst Evolva retains rights to other markets.
Evolva claims that leveraging its proprietary yeast and fermentation platform, it can produce high-value ingredients that would otherwise be highly problematic or inaccessible to industry due to cost, functionality, supply chain, or sustainability issues.
Fabien Cabirol, L’Oreal’s new Global Head of Biotechnologies Department, has said that with this partnership L’Oréal aims to leverage on Evolva’s strong technological platform to develop innovative cosmetic ingredients with perceivable performance and measurable sustainability benefits.
“L’Oréal in-house expertise combined with Evolva flexible yeast platform opens opportunities to meet the needs and aspirations of consumers,” he says.
Under this collaboration, which started in February 2014, Evolva and L’Oréal are applying the former’s innovative fermentation technology to develop a yeast strain optimised for sustainable and cost-effective production of a strategically important cosmetics ingredient.
The two companies reached their first milestone in the collaboration back in January this year.
The collaboration was originally meant to conclude in late 2016, but also includes an option to expand the ingredient focus.
L’Oréal is paying Evolva research fees during the project period, and the Switzerland-based firm is also eligible to receive milestone payments based on achieving research objectives.