Penford and Novomer Enter into Joint Development Agreement
18 January 2012 - 9:15AM
Business Wire
Penford Corporation, a company with significant business and
expertise in specialty starches and sustainable bio-products and
Novomer Inc., a new materials company pioneering a family of
high-performance plastics and polymers using renewable feedstocks
such as carbon dioxide, announce that they have entered into a
Joint Development Agreement that will leverage the two companies’
core technologies and expertise.
The new alliance was created to accelerate the development and
commercialization of innovative Starch-Polypropylene Carbonate
polymer composites. Unmodified starch use has been limited due to
inherent performance characteristics but has long been targeted as
a cost effective, renewable material for a broad range of packaging
applications. When modified, specialty starches can be compatible
with other polymers to extend the use and modify the properties of
those polymers for targeted uses. Polypropylene Carbonate (PPC), a
thermoplastic polymer composed of nearly 50% by weight of waste
CO2, has superior mechanical and barrier properties and a chemical
backbone that is compatible and likely synergistic with specialty
modified starch. It is anticipated that the creation of starch-PPC
composites will yield low cost, environmentally sustainable
packaging polymers suitable for the multi-billion dollar global
packaging materials market.
“This is an exciting opportunity to further expand our efforts
to develop and commercialize cost effective, sustainable
bio-products,” said Penford’s Director of Business Development,
Michael Friesema. Adding to this, Dr. Wallace Kunerth, Penford’s
Chief Science Officer, said, “Novomer’s expertise in sustainable
polymers combined with Penford’s expertise in specialty starch
based formulations provide an opportunity to create
highly-functional, cost-effective, and renewable thermoplastics to
extend or replace petroleum based plastics in barrier films and
structured articles.”
“Governments and companies, especially those in packaged goods
markets around the globe, continue to place a heavy emphasis on
initiatives aimed at reducing carbon levels in the atmosphere and
creating alternatives to petroleum based plastics,” said Peter
Shepard, Executive Vice President of Novomer. “We believe that the
combination of Novomer's extensive PPC technology with Penford's
lower cost, renewable specialty starch products will create truly
novel and cost effective packaging materials and a new avenue to
address these market needs.”
About Penford
Penford Corporation is a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: PENX)
(www.penford.com) that develops, manufactures and markets specialty
ingredients for a variety of industrial and food applications.
Products include a broad line of modified starches for paper and
packaging, biofuels, sustainable bio-products to displace
petroleum-based chemicals and specialty food ingredients. Penford
has seven manufacturing and/or research locations in the United
States.
About Novomer
Novomer (www.novomer.com) is a revolutionary new materials
company pioneering a family of low-cost, high-performance,
sustainable plastics, polymers and other chemicals. Based on the
pioneering catalyst work of Dr. Geoff Coates at Cornell University,
Novomer's groundbreaking technology allows carbon dioxide and other
renewable feedstocks to be cost-effectively transformed into
polymers, plastics and commodity chemicals for a wide variety of
industrial markets. The company is partnered with equity investors
Flagship Ventures, Physic Ventures, OVP Venture Partners and DSM
Venturing and has received significant financial support from the
U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation and the
State of New York.
The statements contained in this release that are not historical
facts are forward-looking statements that represent management’s
beliefs and assumptions based on currently available information.
Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words
such as “believes,” “may,” “will,” “looks,” “should,” “could,”
“anticipates,” “expects,” or comparable terminology or by
discussions of strategies or trends. Although the Company believes
that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements
are reasonable, it cannot give any assurances that these
expectations will prove to be correct. Such statements by their
nature involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could
significantly affect expected results. Actual future results could
differ materially from those described in such forward-looking
statements, and the Company does not intend to update or revise any
forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise. Among the factors that could cause
actual results to differ materially are the risks and uncertainties
discussed in this release and those described from time to time in
other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission which
include, but are not limited to: competition; the possibility of
interruption of business activities due to equipment problems,
accidents, strikes, weather or other factors; product development
risk; changes in corn and other raw material prices and
availability; the Company’s inability to comply with the terms of
instruments governing the Company’s debt or preferred stock;
changes in general economic conditions or developments with respect
to specific industries or customers affecting demand for the
Company’s products, including unfavorable shifts in product mix;
unanticipated costs, expenses or third party claims; interest rate,
chemical and energy cost volatility; changes in returns on pension
plan assets and/or assumptions used for determining employee
benefit expense and obligations; unforeseen developments in the
industries in which Penford operates; and other factors described
in the “Risk Factors” section in reports filed by the Company with
the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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