Collaboration Further Formalized to Include Major Investment from Verdezyne, with Goal of Opening Biochemical Production Facility

San Francisco, September 24, 2013: Malaysia’s strong drive in the development of its biochemical sector showed further progress with BiotechCorp’s awarding of “BioNexus” status to Verdezyne and Verdezyne pledging, in turn, to make a signficiant investment in the planned biochemical production facility in Malaysia, BiotechCorp announced today at the Biotechnology International Advisory Panel (BIO-IAP) meeting in San Francisco, California.

BioNexus status is awarded to qualified companies undertaking value-added biotechnology and/or life sciences activities in Malaysia, and includes fiscal incentives, grants and other guarantees to assist growth. Verdezyne was awarded BioNexus status by the chief executive officer of BiotechCorp, Dato’ Dr. Mohd Nazlee Kamal and witnessed by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, The Honourable Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak at a special announcement ceremony during the BIO-IAP meeting.

“In serving it’s market, Verdezyne uses 100% of Malaysia’s palm kernal oil (PKO) and palm fatty acids distillate (PFAD) effectively creating thousands of high paying jobs, increase raw material value by 200%, stabilze crude palm oil (CPO) and coproducts prices and ultimately creating a high-tech economy for Malaysia,” said Dato’ Dr. Mohd Nazlee.

“Conferring this status on Verdezyne, and their decision, in turn, to invest in Malaysia, are very significant developments for us, and demonstrate Malaysia’s status as a leading destination for industrial biotechnology in the region as well as the strength and stability of the Malaysian economy,” said Dato’ Dr. Mohd Nazlee.

“We feel, further that this collaboration opens up the opportunity for Malaysia to tap into the global chemical intermediates market.” He added.

“We are honored to receive BioNexus Status from BiotechCorp,” commented E.William Radany, PhD, President and CEO of Verdezyne. “This status confers a wide array of support and assistance. We could not be more excited about this collaboration and we are eagerly anticipating breaking ground on our first biochemical production facility in Asia, in coming months.”

Verdezyne’s investment in Malaysia can be viewed as a game-changer to the palm oil industry as the integration of petrochemical and palm oil industries provides value enrichment to the industry.

Dato’ Dr. Mohd Nazlee also view the investment by Verdezyne represents a new era of biochemicals industry in Malaysia.

“We have successfully secured major investments by CJ Cheil Jedang, Arkema, Gevo, MetEX, GlycosBio and Verdezyne. The combine investments from the large companies is about RM5 billion,” said Dato’ Dr. Mohs Nazlee.

Verdezyne, backed by industry leaders such as BP Alternative Energy Ventures and DSM Venturing B.V. among others, is an industrial biotechnology company using proven and proprietary metabolic pathway engineering tools to develop unique yeast strains for cost-effective production of bio-based chemicals.

Among the products that Verdezyne produces are adipic asid, a key component of nylon 6,6 and thermoplastic polyurethanes that is found in everyday products such as clothing, footwear, furniture, carpets, automobile parts and nylon fabric.

Others include sebacic acid, an intermediate used in the production of nylon 6,10, a plastic widely used in toothbrush bristles and dodecanedioic acid (DDDA) which is used in the production of high performance nylon 6,12, molding resins, in addition to lubricants, adhesives and powder coatings.