Codexis achieves milestone under S-P collaboration

Biotechnology firm Codexis says that it has achieved an important developmental milestone under a research agreement it has with fellow US group Schering-Plough (Marketletter April 3). Specifically, the collaboration is designed to rapidly generate a novel biocatalytic process to produce a key intermediate used in the manufacture of an undisclosed human therapeutics compound.

The accord utilizes Codexis' MolecularBreeding platform, which it is hoped will reduce costs and the level of environmental waste that the final manufacturing process produces.

Codexis' president, Alan Shaw, said that the company was pleased with the progress it had made under the accord, adding that a number of major pharmaceutical partners had recognized the competitive advantage that the firm's technology brought to clinical-stage production processes.