DuPont completed its acquisition of Verdia Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of Maxygen Inc, headquartered in Redwood City, a company release said.
Subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, DuPont will purchase the plant sciences company for $64 million in cash.
By purchasing Verdia, DuPont will have worldwide, royalty-free, exclusive rights to use Maxygen's MolecularBreeding directed evolution platform technologies (gene shuffling) for agricultural applications across its Agriculture & Nutrition platform. All Verdia employees will receive offer letters for employment with DuPont, and DuPont plans to retain Verdia's name, its bay-area offices and the Verdia leadership team.
"Verdia will significantly enhance our gene research and trait discovery capabilities," said Jim Miller, DuPont vice president, Crop Genetics Research and Development. "The technology should allow us to reach research targets up to three years faster and more efficiently," he added.
Russell Howard, Maxygen's CEO, said the cash proceeds from the sale of Verdia are non-dilutive to Maxygen stockholders. "The cash will strengthen our ability to advance our human therapeutics product candidates, consistent with our focus in this area," said Howard. He added, "This transaction also reflects the power of our technologies, and we are pleased to have DuPont continue with the success we have created to date in agriculture as we concentrate on generating similar successes in our human therapeutics programmes."
Scientists at Verdia and DuPont subsidiary, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., unveiled the first-ever agricultural trait developed through gene shuffling in the May 21 issue of Science. Pioneer currently has this trait (glyphosate resistance) in field tests in corn and expects to have it on the market within the next five to six years.
The gene shuffling technology should help Pioneer identify and develop a number of new traits to help plants survive environmental stress, including drought - a universal challenge causing more than $8 billion in losses for farmers globally. Pioneer also plans to use the technology to develop crops that more efficiently utilize key inputs such as nitrogen. Each year, US farmers apply an average of 136 lbs. of nitrogen per acre, which have cost farmers an average of $40 per acre over the past 10 years.
Nutrition & Health businesses at DuPont could also tap Verdia technology and expertise to improve plants' health benefits, nutritional value and taste for consumers and processing attributes for food manufacturers.