March 26, 2012

DSM acquires Verenium's food enzymes and oilseed processing businesses 

Press release

Global life sciences and materials sciences company, Royal DSM N.V. has completed the acquisition of Verenium's food enzymes and oilseed processing business at US$37 million.
 

The acquisition includes Verenium's oilseed processing business and IP portfolio, licenses for certain food enzymes and access to biodiversity libraries that Verenium will create using proprietary technology.

Verenium is a global leader in developing high-performance enzymes and sales of these businesses in 2012 are estimated at about US$15 million, growing rapidly in the coming years. 

Verenium has developed Purifine® PLC, an enzyme that offers crop-based oil producers a sustainable way to improve yields as well as overall processing economics. The annual market growth for enzymes in the global crop-based oil market is expected to be about 50% in the coming years with market potential estimated at more than US$350 million.

DSM also acquired exclusive world-wide licenses to alpha-amylase and xylanaseenzymes within the food and beverage markets. The market size for food enzymes alone is more than US$1.3 billion.

In addition, access to Verenium's new bio-diversity collection and library allows DSM to extract microbial DNA directly from collected samples, avoiding the slow and often impossible task of culturing individual microbes in a laboratory. Utilizing ultra-high-throughput screening technologies, Verenium mines its collection of billions of microbial genes in search of unique enzymes.

"This acquisition will broaden our enzymes business and fits very well in our strategy of continued value growth for our Nutrition cluster. It will also further support our leading industrial biotechnology position," says Stephan Tanda, member of the DSM managing board overseeing the nutrition cluster.

With the acquisition of these assets and licenses, DSM will further strengthen its industrial biotech activities (e.g. in oilseed processing) and reinforce its food enzymes innovationpipeline. DSM  is listed on NYSE Euronext and its annual net sales is around EUR9 billion.