Codexis, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDXS), a developer of engineered enzymes for pharmaceutical, biofuel and chemical production, announced today the launch of CodeXyme® 4 and CodeXyme® 4X cellulase enzyme packages for use in producing cellulosic sugar for production of biofuels and bio-based chemicals. Codexis’ latest generation of advanced cellulase enzymes, CodeXyme® 4 for dilute acid pretreatments and CodeXyme® 4X for hydrothermal pretreatments, exhibits excellent performance, converting up to 85% of available fermentable sugars at high biomass and low enzyme loads. Combined with high strain productivity using the CodeXporter® enzyme production system, this allows for a cost-in-use that the company believes will be among the lowest available once in full-scale commercial production. CodeXyme® 4 increases performance 10-20% over Codexis’ last generation product, CodeXyme® 3, measured by the amount of glucan converted into C 6 fermentable sugar. For pre-treatments with unconverted xylan, CodeXyme® 4X maintains the same high C 6 sugar activity while having additional C 5 sugar conversion. “After four years of development using our CodeEvolver® directed evolution technology platform, we are proud to announce that our high-performing CodeXyme ® cellulases are broadly available for the first time,” said John Nicols, Chief Executive Officer of Codexis. “CodeXyme® has been tested against other commercially-available cellulases and we have found the performance to be equal or better than alternative enzymes, across various feedstocks and pre-treatment types. We expect CodeXyme® cellulase to deliver significant cost savings and yield improvements for industrial-scale production of cellulosic sugars.” Leading Enzyme Performance During the past several months, CodeXyme® cellulase has been tested on a variety of feedstocks and pre-treatments, including corn stover, corn cobs, sugarcane bagasse, cane straw, wheat straw and rice straw. In all cases, CodeXyme® 4 and 4X have been found to convert 75 – 85% of glucan and xylan into C6 and C5 sugars, at 10 – 15g enzyme per kg of glucan. With consistently high sugar conversion, customers are able to convert more sugar into high-value biofuels and bio-based chemicals.
