Lygos Inc. announced the signing of an MOU agreement with global fermentation and biotechnology leader, CJ BIO, to produce and deliver commercial volumes of high-performing, sustainable products to the market. As part of the partnership, Lygos will develop a commercial-scale biorefinery complex in Fort Dodge, Iowa, combining CJ BIO’s expertise in fermentation and biotechnology with Lygos’ advanced biology, chemistry and application development technologies for high-performing, sustainable solutions.
The biorefinery complex, a series of facilities that use sustainable feedstock to create high value chemicals and materials, will utilize infrastructure and capabilities from CJ’s existing site, and Lygos will develop additional facilities and downstream operations for the production of its products.
“CJ BIO has recently formed a precision fermentation CDMO (Contract Development & Manufacturing Organization) business to bring more bio-based solutions to market,” said Lance Choi, CEO of CJ BIO America. “Scaling up our existing CDMO partnership with Lygos to manufacture commercial quantities of their products will help us serve our mission to deliver innovative and sustainable products to large markets.”
“We’ve identified clear, higher performance value propositions with our customers, launched those products to the market, and are now pleased to be expanding our partnership with CJ to develop a biorefinery complex in Fort Dodge to commercially manufacture our products at a readily expandable facility,” said Eric Steen, Founder and CEO of Lygos. “We’re looking forward to contributing to a community with a rich and growing history in biomanufacturing.”
The complex will be part of Iowa’s Crossroads of Global Innovation: an Ag-Industrial campus that fosters collaboration and growth within the biomanufacturing sector, located just west of Fort Dodge. The location features 100% renewable electricity, access to sustainable feedstock, and excellent logistics, making it an ideal location to build a biorefinery. CJ’s existing site is next to Cargill’s Fort Dodge Corn Mill, which will provide utilities and access to plant-derived sugar, a biobased feedstock that can be fermented into the key intermediates for Lygos’ products. Lygos is expected to employ up to 350 temporary workers during construction and create approximately 60 highly skilled jobs once the facility is fully operational.
“CJ BIO America has been a cornerstone of our community for many years,” said Astra Ferris, CEO of the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance. “We are thrilled to welcome Lygos to Fort Dodge and Webster County, and we look forward to collaborating as we further solidify our region’s position as a leading innovation hub for biomanufacturing.”
Initially, the biorefinery will support the broad commercialization of Lygos’ flagship products, producing up to 40,000 m.t./yr of Soltellus biodegradable polymers and Ecoteria biobased malonates with the potential to expand to 100,000 MT/yr. The partnership also contemplates an expansion to produce biobased aspartic acid and the launch of new biobased and biodegradable materials, providing Lygos’ business partners with additional solutions to improve overall performance and meet sustainability objectives.
The biorefinery complex, in combination with the recently announced Sustainable Solutions Center in the San Francisco Bay Area, provides a fully integrated commercialization platform across the entire value chain, enabling Lygos to control the product development process from lab-scale to pilot-scale, to commercial production. This allows Lygos to seamlessly partner with customers to cost effectively develop and scale high-performance products, accelerating the path to market.
“We’re pioneering a new business model for efficiently bringing sustainable solutions to market,” said Steen. “The biorefinery complex, combined with our unique Collaborate to Accelerate™ strategy, allows us to control the entire product development process from idea to R&D, to commercial delivery, helping us expand the scale of our flagship products while offering significant future value potential.”
Lygos anticipates an 18-24 month construction period after groundbreaking.
Soltellus™ polymers are sustainable, biodegradable, and water-soluble with applications in home care, personal care, agronomy, and water treatment.
Ecoteria™ malonates offer safety, sustainability, performance, and supply resiliency benefits in fragrances, coatings, agriculture chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other specialty applications.