BASF allies with Diversa

Diversa Corporation and BASF have entered into an alliance to bring new enzyme products to market.

Under the agreement, Diversa will be responsible for the discovery and optimisation of new enzymes and BASF will be responsible for product and process development and marketing.

BASF and Diversa have been collaborating on biochemical projects since 2001. In 2003, BASF licensed a proprietary enzyme from Diversa for the biocatalytic synthesis of a chiral pharmaceutical intermediate.

“Diversa and BASF intend to leverage our combined expertise in biotechnology and chemistry aiming at system innovations for diverse industrial applications,” says Dr. Alfred Hackenberger, BASF’s President of Specialty Chemicals Research. “We look forward to addressing several exciting opportunities by developing better products to help our customers in several key markets like pulp and paper or fine chemicals to be more successful.”

BASF has more than two decades of experience in the area of biotechnology. The company uses biocatalytic processes to produce a variety of products like vitamin B2, the amino acid lysine, and chiral intermediates by means of living cell fermentation or enzyme catalysis.