The president of the Hungarian National Office for Intellectual Property Gyula Pomázi presented the Ányos-Jedlik medal to Levente Ondi, Ph.D., director of XiMo Hungary Kft.
Related: Givaudan and XiMo Announce Commercial Fragrance Production
The Jedlik Ányos Award was established in 1996 in order to recognize outstandingly successful inventors' work and the scientific achievement of excellent standards and efficiency in protection of industrial property.
Ondi joined XiMo Hungary Kft. in 2010 and has been managing the operation of the company since 2018. Under Ondi’s leadership, XiMo has succeeded in taking the molybdenum- and tungsten-based catalysts developed by the company’s founders, professor Richard Schrock (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and professor Amir Hoveyda (Boston College), to a new level and transferring them to an industrial scale. With the commercial synthesis of its catalyst, XiMo has is said to have established a technology that facilitates completely new applications for the flavor, fragrance, bioenergy, and polymer industries, as well as for use in sustainable crop protection.
XiMo is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Verbio Vereinigte BioEnergie AG, Germany. Verbio is investing in an ethenolysis plant at its site in Germany and in a production plant for metathesis catalysts in Hungary in order to make use of the technology for the production of renewable-based chemical components.
Ondi shared, “I am very pleased that our joint work over the past twelve years has been recognized with this award. Although the prize carries my name, it is a recognition of the support, guidance, and inspiration that I have received from colleagues, teachers, mentors, friends, and family during my entire lifetime. This would not have been possible without them."
Claus Sauter, chief executive officer of Verbio AG said, “Levente Ondi, Ph.D., embodies my description of a visionary. His passion, his thirst for knowledge and his determination have made him what he is today: an exceptional scientist, who is now rightly being recognized for his work. It makes me proud to have people like him at Verbio. Together, we have a big future in front of us. This is about nothing less than the green transformation of the chemical industry."
