VG Energy signs production deal for LipidMax; enhancing lipids production in organisms

11 September 2012

Viral Genetics’ majority-owned subsidiary, VG Energy, has contracted with Eno Research Chemicals & Custom Synthesis Group for production of its LipidMax lipid enhancement compound, in sufficient capacity to meet demand from commercial and research end-users worldwide. (Earlier post.)

LipidMax, the first product marketed by VG Energy, is a lipid-enhancement compound for use in the production of oils from algae, corn, palm, and other plants or plant-like organisms and is based on the company’s exclusively licensed Metabolic Disruption Technology (MDT).

Independent testing has shown that, when treated with LipidMax, the yields from several algae and algae-like species including Schizochytrium, Prymnesium parvum, and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, have shown significant increases in oil (lipid) yields.

Similar, if not stronger, results have been observed in palm and other oil-producing plants. The company believes that LipidMax should generate oil-enhancing results in most other species of plants and plant-like organisms beyond those mentioned, and is continuing testing to validate and quantify this.

The oil yield increase is thought to provide a possible catalyst for changing the economic feasibility for algal-derived biofuels in the marketplace, making biofuels more cost-competitive, when compared to petroleum-based fuels. Similar cost-reduction effects in plant oils used as food, nutraceuticals and cosmetics should also result from productivity-enhancement.

The company joins a newly emerging category of businesses called “intermediates” in the biofuels and bio-chemical sectors. These products can be utilized in the production of an array of fuels, chemicals, flavors, fragrances and other end products. Intermediates constitute building blocks and intermediate steps upon which other processes and products are built, and as such can become integral to building the value chain in these rapidly growing bio-based industries.

VG Energy’s Chief Scientist, Dr. M. Karen Newell-Rogers, noted that the Eno Research Chemicals and Custom Synthesis Group is fully cGMP- and cGLP-compliant, has passed a rigorous set of internal testing protocols, and the product produced at the facility meets the company’s standards for chemical consistency, purity and yield.