Whats the business case for developing highly advanced technology to produce what are essentially commodity chemicals?
SJ: It is true that some folks are going after commodity chemicals, like fuels, where you’re selling into a huge global market with commodity price swings. What they’re betting on, though, is price position. Although they won’t have IP protection for their end product (you can’t patent ethanol, for example), they can create protected pathways to make chemicals that are far more cost-effective than any other petroleum-based process. So whether these new processes are consuming waste feedstocks, or stranded feedstocks that were too expensive to ship around previously, or true free wastes like CO2 from the air-you are unlocking value with this technology. Another interesting aspect to this directed evolution approach, and what separates it from prior generations of biotech, is that your process can actually get better over time. In past production systems, organisms would “drift” over time-that is, they mutate away from producing the chemical you want, because it is a profligate waste of
