Apr 5 2005
Cargill and Materia, Inc. have announced the expansion of a development agreement for Cargill’s use of Materia’s proprietary olefin metathesis technology for converting biobased oils to industrial chemicals, feedstocks and consumer products. The agreement provides Cargill an expanded field and exclusive license while providing Materia increased funding for accelerated research. Specific terms were not disclosed.
The original agreement, announced in Sept. 2003, was based on a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grant for ethenolysis development that will continue. Progress achieved under the grant has encouraged both companies to expand the commercial and technical scope of their work.
“Materia is very pleased to further solidify our relationship with Cargill and to have our early success validated,” said Materia CEO and Chief Technology Officer Michael Giardello. “We look forward to accelerating our efforts to apply Materia technology to renewable resources and to realizing commercial success from our alliance in the near future.”
“From the outset, Cargill has been fully committed to this relationship and pleased with the progress of the research and development programs,” added Jim Stoppert, senior director of Cargill’s Industrial BioProducts development group. “Our work identifying opportunities from the combination of Materia and Cargill technologies is showing significant potential. We appreciate the continued support that the DOE is providing as well. Their initial support led to the collaboration that is now expanding into a much broader opportunity with more potential than any of us originally anticipated.”
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