Berkeley Lights, Inc. And Amyris Announce Collaboration To Speed Testing Of Microbial Strains

EMERYVILLE, Calif., June 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Berkeley Lights, Inc. (BLI), the leader in digital cell biology, and Amyris, Inc. (Nasdaq:AMRS), a leader in the development and production of sustainable ingredients for the Health & Wellness, Clean Beauty, and Flavors & Fragrances markets, announced today that they have entered into a collaboration focused on improving the production of high-value, small molecule, natural products from Amyris' microbial strains. This is the first application of BLI's Beacon® platform for microbial strains within synthetic biology.

The goal of the collaboration is to implement the Beacon platform to identify and isolate microbial strains that produce the highest quantities of non-therapeutic product. The Beacon platform is currently used to compress timelines and increase capacity in drug discovery and development by transforming previously fragmented macrofluidic workflows into automated nanofluidic workflows. Initial proof-of-concept has shown that the Beacon platform has the potential to increase Amyris's strain testing capacity tenfold, thereby adding capacity and further increasing the speed of product development at Amyris. The synergy between the Beacon platform and Amyris's proven ability to commercially scale multiple products has the ability to further increase the availability of sustainable, renewable products.

"The Beacon platform is one of the few technologies we've seen that potentially offers a truly advanced solution to synthetic biology by making it possible to test engineered microbial strains in a fraction of the time and at unprecedented scales. This collaboration with Berkeley Lights is expected to not just increase our screening capacity for a high-value, commercial asset, but to also deliver high-producing strains at a fraction of the overall cost," stated John Melo, President and CEO of Amyris. "This would help to support increased speed to market for commercial-scale products at reduced cost."

"At Berkeley Lights we are on a mission to accelerate our customers' product development cycles," said Dr. Eric Hobbs, CEO of Berkeley Lights. "Our goal is to enable partners like Amyris, an early pioneer and a current leader in the bio-manufacturing space, to dramatically reduce the time to market for key assets in their small molecule pipelines. By applying our workflows that target increased process yields with reduced lead times, we can quickly help our partners realize scalable and sustainable manufacturing across a large range of bio-based products. Additionally, given Amyris's proven ability to commercially scale across multiple products, we see Beacon as having a positive commercial impact."

About Amyris
Amyris is the integrated renewable products company that is enabling the world's leading brands to achieve sustainable growth. Amyris applies its innovative bioscience solutions to convert plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules and produce specialty ingredients and consumer products. The company is delivering its No Compromise™ products and services across a number of markets, including specialty and performance chemicals, flavors and fragrances, cosmetics ingredients, pharmaceuticals, and nutraceuticals. More information about the company is available at www.amyris.com.

About Berkeley Lights
Berkeley Lights, Inc. (BLI) is a digital cell biology company that develops and commercializes workflows and processes for the biotechnology sector to accelerate the design, discovery, development, and delivery of cell-based products. By operating at the intersection of biology, technology and information, our workflows automate the manipulation, analysis and selection of individual cells, creating ultimate scalability and deep cell insights. BLI enables the rapid deployment of biology for the production of sustainable and scalable sources of food, therapies, and energy.

For more information, visit http://www.berkeleylights.com/.
* For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures

Amyris Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements regarding Amyris, and any statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed to be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements regarding future events, such as the expected benefits of the Beacon platform for Amyris's product development, including increasing Amyris's strain testing and screening capacity, reducing testing time and cost, and increasing speed to market. These statements are based on management's current expectations and actual results and future events may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties, including risks related to Amyris's liquidity and ability to fund operating and capital expenses, risks related to potential delays or failures in development, production and commercialization of products, risks related to Amyris's reliance on third parties, and other risks detailed from time to time in filings Amyris makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. Amyris disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

SOURCE Berkeley Lights, Inc.

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