July 2010
Elevance Attends BIO World Congress
Elevance attended and participated in BIO’s 7th Annual World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing in Washington, D.C., June 27-30. This was the world’s largest industrial biotechnology event for industry leaders, investors and policy makers in biofuels, biobased products and renewable chemicals.
Elevance’s Chief Science Officer Steve DiBiase and VP of Chemicals Development Robin Weitkamp gave presentations at the conference and were pleased to be joined by Dr. Sian Rees, Director of Science and Technology for Dow Corning’s Life Science Business.
Dr. Rees, who participated in the session, “Specialty Chemicals, Pharma Intermediates, Food Ingredients Advances in Commercialization of Performance Specialty Chemical” with Robin Weitkamp, discussed Dow Corning’s approach to innovation and their collaboration with Elevance in the commercialization of specialty chemicals for the personal care industry.
Weitkamp discussed Elevance’s approach to commercializing biobased products, specifically the different products that Elevance would be developing with Wilmar. He highlighted the need for performance and economic value to the end user and the benefit of partnerships with companies like Dow Corning.
DiBiase discussed Elevance’s technology and its implementation into the Elevance biorefinery.
In all, it was a great opportunity for scientists, executives, government officials and investors to network and exchange ideas and we look forward to World Congress 2011.
Elevance Names Robert B. Shapiro to Board of Directors
Elevance announced that Robert B. Shapiro, co-founder and managing director of Sandbox Industries, has joined its board of directors. Shapiro brings extensive experience in both the agriculture industry and in entrepreneurship — as evidenced by his leadership of Sandbox Industries, a development firm that creates, launches and manages new business concepts and venture funds.
Previously, Shapiro served as the Chairman and CEO of Monsanto Company. Upon the merger of Monsanto with Pharmacia & Upjohn, he served as Chairman of the newly-formed Pharmacia Corporation. Shapiro was President of Monsanto’s Agriculture Group, Chairman and CEO of The NutraSweet Company, and President of the NutraSweet Group of G.D.Searle & Co., where he served as Vice President and General Counsel.
We are delighted to welcome Bob and believe his unique combination of experience in the agricultural and chemicals industries will be an enormous asset to our company. His experience with innovative and disruptive technologies makes him the perfect addition to our team, and we are honored to have him join our board of directors.
In addition to Elevance, Shapiro serves on the boards of Theranos, Inc., Darkstrand, Inc., and Sapphire Energy, Inc.
Welcome Bob!
Elevance Commercializes Novel Specialty Chemicals
Elevance attended BIO’s World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing last week and announced that we will commercialize C18 dicarboxylic acids and esters. Elevance will produce the unique, high purity products using our proprietary metathesis technology platform at Elevance and Wilmar’s integrated manufacturing complex now under construction in Surabaya, Indonesia.
Robin Weitkamp, VP of Chemicals Development for Elevance shared the significance of this announcement: “The C18 diacids and esters are examples of products that will bring unique high performance to the marketplace. These specialty chemicals have not been produced economically from petrochemical or fermentation routes nor have they met the purity requirements necessary for many applications. Along with 9-decenoic acids and esters, they represent the first of the novel specialty chemicals we will produce at our biorefinery.”
These unique products have high linearity, with options for saturated or unsaturated monomer backbone and can be derived from any number of globally available natural oils. The high monomer purity lends the product to highly efficient use as a monomer in polymerization systems. The products will be produced in highly repeatable, known chemical processes as opposed to biologic or complex chemical conversion steps.
Elevance will produce samples for product qualification in the fourth quarter of 2010 with truckload quantities available early in 2011.
Social Media