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Photonz Shifts Gears from Up-Scaling Manufacture to Seeking Commercial Partners

Friday 9 November 2012, 3:22PM

By Botica Butler Raudon Partners

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Talks are underway involving potential partners of Photonz Corporation as the company is finalising its process for manufacturing eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) by fermentation of micro-algae.

Photonz chief executive Dr Greg Collier is meeting with interested parties at the 5th Algae World Asia conference (7 – 9 November) which has brought together representatives of industry and investor groups from across the region.

“The years that we have put into developing this product, gaining IP control and up-scaling the manufacturing process to make it commercial-ready are now coming to fruition,” Dr Collier says. “We’re at the point where Photonz can now sit down and speak to potential partners about commercial-scale manufacturing and supply into an already established market.

“The market for EPA as a treatment is there – what we’re offering is a more efficient, sustainable, reliable, scalable and high-purity source of this important omega-3 fatty acid.”

Dr Collier said interest had been expressed for Photonz’s EPA products at varying levels of purity. The Photonz manufacturing process – which is on-track to reach industrial-scale capability around the end of this year - can produce EPA at purity levels varying from a 20% - 25% basic form to a 97% EPA product suited to pharmaceutical uses.

Dr Collier said talks with potential partners would also take place later this month at the Health Ingredients Europe conference (13 – 15 November) in Frankfurt, Germany.

This conference would also present an opportunity to highlight the environmental sustainability of Photonz’s EPA products compared to fish oil-sourced EPA, as well as its potential as an additive in vegetarian foods.

“This will be the only non GM vegetarian source of purified EPA, and a source of EPA that is not a bi-product of the fishing industry,” Dr Collier said. “There is a broader discussion that global fish stocks are in decline and the more the market for omega-3 fatty acids - including EPA - grows so it will exert even more pressure.”

Dr Collier said Photonz’s EPA may allow food companies to add to a new marketable claim to their products - noting they deliver the benefits of fish oil while being sustainable and relieving pressure on fish stocks.

About Photonz: Founded in New Zealand in 2002, Photonz Corporation produces the omega-3 fatty acid eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) which is a critical ingredient in novel therapeutics for the cardiovascular disease market. Photonz has proprietary control over a unique fermentation process involving an EPA-rich strain of marine microalgae. This has been shown to produce EPA in a range of purities up to 97% and to be suited to pharmaceutical applications. Photonz is approaching a commercial-ready phase with facilities in the UK and France involved in late-stage up-scaling of an already proven manufacturing process. EPA, which has a range of food-based and therapeutic applications, is otherwise derived from fish oil.