Evolva’s 2014 revenue rose 23% to CHF10.7 million. About 89% of revenue came from corporate partnerships in the form of research fees and milestone payments from Cargill, IFF, Ajinomoto, Roquette and L’Oréal as well as an upfront license payment from Emergent.
In a conference call with investors, Neil Goldsmith, CEO of Evolva, said the Ruby partnership involves pathway creation, strain improvement and scale-up, which will be completed by the middle of this year. In 2012, Evolva partnered a specific ingredient (with food and personal care applications) within the Ruby family with Roquette (Lestrem, France).
On vanillin, “we expect to see further commercialization by IFF and alongside that, further improvements in the manufacturing efficiency of the product. And we will be exploring on our own, the application areas that we have retained rights to,” Goldsmith said.
The company expects to launch nootkatone, in flavors and fragrances with the first revenues from that during the course of this year. There also will be further work on the strain, further work on the downstream process, work on the production scale out, and work on getting stevia, under a partnership with Cargill, approved in 2015.
