Willow Biosciences Inc., a biotechnology company focused on revolutionizing industrial manufacturing of pure, consistent and sustainable functional ingredients and Kalsec® Inc., a global producer of natural taste and sensory, food protection, colors and advanced hops ingredients for the food and beverage industry, announced entry into a Master Services Agreement (MSA)to develop and commercialize a precision fermentation production process for a high volume, natural food opportunity.
"We are pleased to add a new functional ingredient to our portfolio, highlighting the demand for our fully integrated FutureGrown™ technology platform,” said Dr. Peter Seufer-Wasserthal, Willow’s president & CEO. “We welcome the opportunity to advance Kalsec’s range of natural, sustainable products while also evolving Willow’s business strategy.”
The MSA consists of research and development and scale-up phases, with Willow generating revenues from both research fees and milestone payments. If successful, and the partnership proceeds to commercialization, both parties anticipate entering into a license agreement to share in the economics of the delivered product. This strategic partnership is driving important innovation and will support greater adoption of precision fermentation technology for natural food and beverage products.
Willow’s FutureGrown™ technology platform is a fully integrated, proven solution for rapid strain engineering, process development and scaled-up manufacturing that incorporates the latest technologies available for precision fermentation. Willow’s R&D pipeline now includes four functional ingredients utilizing its FutureGrown™ technology. Kalsec’s projects with Willow focus on S. cerevisiae (brewer’s yeast), which is an ideal host for expressing and engineering metabolic pathways to numerous products of interest to the food and beverage market.
Kalsec's long history and expertise in creating natural products and solutions for the food and beverage industry will enable the benefits of precision fermentation to be realized. By working closely with their customers, the development team at Kalsec has identified multiple potential opportunities for collaboration and innovation in this space.
