CDXS Company Profile

We discover, develop and sell proteins that deliver value to our clients in a growing set of industries. We view proteins as a vast untapped source of value-creating materials, and we are using our proven technologies, which have been continuously improved over our fifteen year history, to commercialize an increasing number of novel proteins, both as proprietary Codexis products and in partnership with our customers.
Many companies have historically used naturally occurring proteins to produce or enhance goods used in everyday life. Despite the growing number of commercial applications of naturally occurring proteins across many industries, the inherent limitations of naturally-occurring proteins frequently restrict their commercial use. Through the application of our proprietary CodeEvolver® protein engineering technology platform, we are able to engineer novel proteins to overcome these restrictions, thereby adding value or opening up new prospects for our potential clients’ products, processes or businesses. We have developed new proteins that are significantly more stable and/or active in our commercial applications than proteins derived from nature.

We are a pioneer in the harnessing of computational technologies to drive biology advancements. Over the last fifteen years, we have made substantial investments in the development of our CodeEvolver® protein engineering technology platform, the primary source of our competitive advantage. Our technology platform is powered by proprietary, artificial intelligence-based, computational algorithms that rapidly mine our large and continuously growing library of protein variants’ performance attributes. These computational outputs enable increasingly reliable predictions for next generation protein variants to be engineered, enabling delivery of targeted performance enhancements in a time-efficient manner. In addition to its computational prowess, our CodeEvolver® protein engineering technology platform integrates additional modular competencies, including robotic high-throughput screening and genomic sequencing, organic chemistry and process development which are all coordinated to create our novel protein innovations.

Our strategy is to grow our revenues, profits, and stockholder value by leveraging our CodeEvolver® protein engineering technology platform in the following ways:

Licensing our CodeEvolver® protein engineering technology platform. We intend to continue to pursue opportunities to license our CodeEvolver® protein engineering technology platform to third parties so they can create cost-saving protein catalyst solutions utilizing their own in-house protein engineering capability.

Growing our pharmaceutical protein catalysts business. We intend to continue to pursue opportunities in the pharmaceutical market to use our protein catalysis products and services to reduce the costs for manufacturing small molecule drugs. We intend to increase the number of pharmaceutical customers and processes that utilize and benefit from our novel, cost-saving protein catalyst solutions.

Growing our fine chemicals protein catalysts business. We intend to continue to pursue opportunities in the fine chemicals market to use protein catalysis products and services to reduce the costs for manufacturing in adjacent markets like food and food ingredients. We intend to increase the number of fine chemical customers and processes who utilize and benefit from our novel, cost-saving protein catalyst solutions.

Creating and advancing novel biotherapeutic drug candidates. We intend to continue to pursue opportunities to apply our protein engineering capabilities to the creation and development of novel biotherapeutic drug candidates, both in partnership with customers and as proprietary Codexis drug candidates. We intend to continue to advance our own novel enzyme biotherapeutic candidate for the potential treatment of phenylketonuria ("PKU") disease. We have also invested in research and development in an effort to generate additional early stage novel biotherapeutic candidates.

Developing high-performance enzymes for use in diagnostic applications. We intend to offer high-performance enzymes to customers using next generation sequencing (“NGS”) and polymerase chain reaction (“PCR/qPCR”) for in vitro molecular diagnosis applications.

Our pharmaceutical customers, which include a majority of the largest global pharmaceutical companies, use our technology, products and services in their manufacturing processes and process development. Our CodeEvolver® protein engineering technology platform enables us to deliver solutions to our customers in this market by developing and delivering optimized protein catalysts that perform chemical transformations at a lower cost and improve the efficiency and productivity of manufacturing processes. We provide value throughout the pharmaceutical product lifecycle. Our products and services allow us to provide benefits to our pharmaceutical customers in a number of cost saving ways, including any - and sometimes all - of the following:
reducing the use of raw materials and reagents;
eliminating multiple steps in the manufacturing process;
improving purity, productivity and yield;
using water as a primary solvent;
eliminating hazardous inputs;
enabling the use of simple equipment and reducing the need for capital expenditure;
reducing energy requirements;
reducing the generation of chemical byproducts or waste; and
reducing the need for late-stage purifications.
Early in a pharmaceutical product’s lifecycle, pharmaceutical manufacturers can use our protein catalyst products and services to reduce manufacturing costs. If an innovator incorporates our products or processes into an approved product, we expect the innovator to continue to use our products or processes at least over the patent life of the marketed drug.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers can also use our products and services to reduce manufacturing costs after a product is launched. At this stage, changes in the manufacturing process originally approved by the drug regulator may require additional regulatory review. Typically, pharmaceutical companies will only seek regulatory approval for a manufacturing change if substantial cost savings are realizable. We believe that the cost savings associated with our products may lead our customers to change their manufacturing processes for approved products and, if necessary, seek regulatory approval of the new processes which incorporate our proteins. Moreover, we believe these cost savings are attractive to generics manufacturers, who compete primarily on price.
In addition, manufacturing processes that utilize our protein catalysts can frequently enable processes that are more sustainable and environmentally friendly compared to alternative, traditional manufacturing approaches. This has led Codexis to earn three US EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge awards for improved pharmaceutical manufacturing processes over the last eleven years. All three of these awards were associated with blockbuster drug products.