DSM buys into Amyris with equity investment

16-May-2017 - Last updated on 17-May-2017 at 13:40 GMT

Royal DSM, global ingredients player, has announced it will make an equity investment into industrial bioscience company Amyris.

Alongside this, the two companies will enter into a development cooperation focused on products for the global health and nutrition markets, they note, including vitamins and other nutritional ingredients.

The companies believe they are well-matched to enter into a close financial and development cooperative agreement.

“Amyris' technology supports DSM's strategic markets in health, nutrition, and materials as well as a growing consumer shift to (bio-) natural-like products derived from sustainable sources,” they note.

“For Amyris, DSM's channels and market access and keen understanding in selecting the right products for the animal nutrition, human nutrition, and consumer health markets provide strategic value.”

Equity Investment details

DSM is set to make an initial equity investment in Amyris of US$25 million, translating into a shareholding of ~12%, the companies have stated, with the potential for DSM to invest a further US$25 million if Amyris can satisfy ‘certain conditions’. As part of the investment, DSM is set to gain two board seats at Amyris.

DSM and Amyris have agreed to focus on a number of short- to medium-term product development & production opportunities.

"The Amyris technology platform and potential synergy can lead to significant cost improvements for DSM while accelerating Amyris's market access. We expect this will lead to incremental revenue in 2017, growing annually based on the number of products we develop in our partnership and our pace of delivery," said John Melo, Amyris President & CEO.

"Working closely together with Amyris and leveraging DSM's route-to-market, will accelerate our innovation towards cost-effective, fermentation-based processes for both existing and new products," stated Chris Goppelsroeder, President & CEO of DSM Nutritional Products.

While this deal relates specifically to the nutrition-focussed activities of both companies, each of them are significant players in the cosmetics industry. It remains to be seen what the new synergy could mean for beauty and personal care.