Ingenza has partnered with University of Oxford spinoff, HydRegen, to develop sustainable and cost-effective catalysts for biomanufacturing.
The companies will work together to optimise amine-based chemical manufacturing methods, which eliminate the need for heavy metal catalysts.
They will do this by enhancing the expression levels of a new candidate biocatalyst, increasing process efficiency and resource use.
This class of catalyst, according to HydRegen, will be suitable for both batch and continuous flow chemical manufacturing, while also thwarting the need for the costly downstream purification processes often associated with metal-based catalysts.
HydRegen uses a suite of proprietary enzyme technologies to perform reactions at much lower temperatures and pressures, making processes more energy efficient and sustainable while offering significant cost savings.
To utilise these biocatalysts at a commercial scale, HydRegen has teamed up with Ingenza to fast-track the enzyme engineeing process.
Dr Matthew Hodges, COO at HydRegen, explained: "We spoke to several other service providers, but Ingenza really stood out because of its past experience working with hydrogen. The team understood the complexity of the enzyme we were working with, and brought the biology capabilities we needed. Plus, Ingenza’s timescale and affordability struck just the right balance for us."
Dr Holly Reeve, CEO of HydRegen, added: “We were initially only expecting a several-fold increase in enzyme expression levels, but we ended up with a much greater improvement in a very short period of time, and we're really pleased with the results. There’s still a lot of potential for future optimisation through molecular biology and fermentation engineering, and seeing these kinds of improvements early on makes us excited to explore how much further we can go."
Jaymin Amin, Chief Business Officer at Ingenza, said: “We were excited to collaborate with HydRegen to enhance the expression of its proprietary enzymes for biocatalysis. This partnership combines our advanced bio-manufacturing technologies with HydRegen’s pioneering approach to sustainable chemistry, furthering the transition to green manufacturing and reducing the environmental impact of chemical production.”