Biotechnology company Ingenza is proud to be celebrating its 10th year of collaboration with Teesside-based Lucite International (LI). LI is the world’s largest producer of methyl-methacrylate (MMA) – the building block of acrylic – and has partnered with Ingenza to explore biological, instead of chemical, manufacturing routes with lower carbon footprints.
LI’s expertise in the chemical synthesis of methacrylates is being combined with Ingenza’s synthetic biology approach to develop a biomanufacturing process that uses more environmentally friendly feedstocks. Ingenza has already demonstrated technical feasibility of this novel biological processing route, and the team is now engaged in detailed technology development. This successful collaboration has also led to a number of additional projects in partnership with third party academic collaborators – including the universities of St Andrews, Strathclyde, Aberdeen and Nottingham – helping to drive progress further towards a more sustainable future. It also forms part of LI’s work towards KAITEKI – ‘the sustainable well-being of people, society and our planet Earth’ – through which the company is driving down greenhouse gas emissions at its sites, and leading the way in developing a sustainable bio-based innovation manufacturing route to MMA.
Dr Ian Fotheringham, Managing Director at Ingenza, commented: “We work very closely with the team at LI, and this continuous communication has been critical to the success of the collaboration. Our open relationship and combination of expertise have resulted in a fantastic sharing of knowledge, consistently delivering on milestones over the past decade. We look forward to our continued future with LI.”
Dr John Runnacles, Business Research Director at LI, added: “We value our long-standing relationship with Ingenza; the team has shown great capability and flexibility to help us successfully progress our technology development programme.”