News & Press
OPXBIO Wins Outstanding Venture Award at NREL Clean Energy Forum
Recognized for Progress Toward Biochemicals and Biofuels Commercialization
Boulder, Colo. – Oct. 27, 2010 – OPX Biotechnologies Inc. (OPXBIO), a renewable biochemical and biofuel company, recently was recognized with an Outstanding Venture Award by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at NREL’s 23rd Industry Growth Forum. OPXBIO was one of three entrepreneurial companies singled out from 34 com-petitively selected presenters to win the Clean Energy Venture Awards bestowed by NREL in col-laboration with awards sponsor Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
“This prestigious designation further validates our technology’s potential and our business plan to address global energy and environmental challenges,” said Charles R. (Chas) Eggert, President and CEO of OPXBIO. “Combined with the strength of our leadership team and our significant progress toward proving the economical advantage of our first renewable chemical product, Bio-Acrylic, OPXBIO is well positioned for commercial success.”
OPXBIO uses its proprietary leading EDGE™ (Efficiency Directed Genome Engineering) technol-ogy to manufacture renewable bio-based chemicals and fuels that are lower cost, higher return, and more sustainable than existing petro-based products. With unprecedented speed and capital efficiency, in just 18 months OPXBIO has developed and piloted the microbe and bioprocess that will produce its first product – BioAcrylic – at 25 percent lower cost than petro-acrylic with a 75 percent reduction in green house gas emissions. Today’s petro-acrylic has an $8 billion global market in applications such as paints, adhesives, diapers and detergents. BioAcrylic will advance to pre-commercial scale demonstration with a strategic development partner in 2011 on the way to full commercialization in 2014. The company’s second product is diesel fuel bio-processed from carbon dioxide and hydrogen.
Clean Energy Venture Award competitors were judged according to the feasibility of their busi-ness case, strength of their management team, business and marketing strategy, and potential return on investment. As an Outstanding Venture winner, OPXBIO will receive an award package of $5,000 in cash plus in-kind commercialization services from NREL and Wilson Sonsini Good-rich & Rosati. NREL’s 23rd Industry Growth Forum, a three-day event held Oct. 19-21 in Denver, highlighted clean energy industry technology and business developments and attracted nearly 500 investors, entrepreneurs, scientists and policymakers.
Media Contact:
Brandy Radey
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About OPXBIO
OPXBIO uses its proprietary leading EDGE™ (Efficiency Directed Genome Engineering) technol-ogy to manufacture renewable bio-based chemicals and fuels that are lower cost, higher return, and more sustainable than existing petro-based products. With unprecedented speed and capital efficiency, in just 18 months OPXBIO has developed and piloted the microbe and bioprocess that will produce its first renewable chemical product - BioAcrylic - at 25% lower cost than petro-acrylic with a 75% reduction in green house gas emissions. The company’s second product is diesel fuel bio-processed from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded OPXBIO $6 million to support this development. OPXBIO has raised $22.4 million with venture investors Mohr Davidow Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures, Altira Group, and X/Seed Capital. For more information, visit http://www.opxbiotechnologies.com.
About NREL
NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for the Department of Energy by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.
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