Codexis, Inc. is a protein engineering company that develops enzymes for pharmaceutical, food and medical applications.

History

Codexis is based in

Redwood City, CA Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a ...

and was incorporated in 2002. It went public in April 2010 on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

, and in October, acquired Maxygen's MolecularBreeding technology portfolio.

Pharmaceutical

Codexis won the

Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award Green chemistry, also called sustainable chemistry, is an area of chemistry and chemical engineering focused on the design of products and processes that minimize or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. While environmental che ...

from the

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...

(EPA) in 2006 for its work on a building block of

Lipitor Atorvastatin is a statin medication used to prevent cardiovascular disease in those at high risk and to treat abnormal lipid levels. For the prevention of cardiovascular disease, statins are a first-line treatment. It is taken by mouth. Common ...

. It then won a second time in 2010 for its work with Merck & Co. on the active ingredient in

Januvia Sitagliptin, sold under the brand name Januvia among others, is an anti-diabetic medication used to treat type 2 diabetes. In the United Kingdom it is listed as less preferred than metformin or a sulfonylurea. It is taken by mouth. It is also a ...

Nutrition

In 2017, the company entered a partnership with

Tate & Lyle Tate & Lyle PLC is a British-headquartered, global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets. It was originally a sugar refining business, but from the 1970s it began to diversify, eventually divesting its sugar business i ...

to provide research and development for the production of new ingredients. That same year, Codexis announced a collaboration with Nestle to provide enzymes for metabolic disorders.

Biotherapeutics

In 2017, Codexis developed a recombinant

phenylalanine ammonia-lyase The enzyme phenylalanine ammonia lyase (EC 4.3.1.24) catalyzes the conversion of L-phenylalanine to ammonia and ''trans''-cinnamic acid.: :L-phenylalanine = ''trans''-cinnamate + NH3 Phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) is the first and committed ...

(PAL) enzyme, to act as a substitute

phenylalanine hydroxylase Phenylalanine hydroxylase. (PAH) () is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydroxylation of the aromatic side-chain of phenylalanine to generate tyrosine. PAH is one of three members of the biopterin-dependent aromatic amino acid hydroxylases, a class ...

(PAH) enzyme for people who suffer from

phenylketonuria Phenylketonuria (PKU) is an inborn error of metabolism that results in decreased metabolism of the amino acid phenylalanine. Untreated PKU can lead to intellectual disability, seizures, behavioral problems, and mental disorders. It may also resu ...

. The enzyme was in-licensed by Nestle Health Sciences. In 2020,

Takeda Pharmaceutical The is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical company, with partial American and British roots. It is the largest pharmaceutical company in Asia and one of the top 20 List of largest pharmac ...

announced a collaboration with Codexis to research and create gene therapies for rare diseases, including

lysosomal storage disorders Lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs; ) are a group of over 70 rare inherited metabolic disorders that result from defects in lysosomal function. Lysosomes are sacs of enzymes within cells that digest large molecules and pass the fragments on to other ...

Life science

In June 2020, they announced a partnership with Molecular Assemblies to engineer enzymes for

DNA synthesis DNA synthesis is the natural or artificial creation of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules. DNA is a macromolecule made up of nucleotide units, which are linked by covalent bonds and hydrogen bonds, in a repeating structure. DNA synthesis occur ...

Technology

Codexis uses

directed evolution Directed evolution (DE) is a method used in protein engineering that mimics the process of natural selection to steer proteins or nucleic acids toward a user-defined goal. It consists of subjecting a gene to iterative rounds of mutagenesis (cre ...

to develop its enzymes. Using this method, scientists genetically engineer genes, then screen the enzymes produced to see if it creates the properties needed for a specific reaction. Their protein engineering platform, called CodeEvolver, uses

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

and high-thoroughput experimentation to learn

protein sequence Protein primary structure is the linear sequence of amino acids in a peptide or protein. By convention, the primary structure of a protein is reported starting from the amino-terminal (N) end to the carboxyl-terminal (C) end. Protein biosynthesi ...

changes and their impacts on protein function.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Biotechnology companies of the United States Companies listed on the Nasdaq 2002 establishments in California Biotechnology companies established in 2002 Companies based in Redwood City, California