Active ingredients sought from Malaysian natural products

REINACH, Switzerland – Evolva Holding SA (SIX: EVE) will collaborate with Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) to establish a scientific Centre of Excellence for natural products from Malaysia as part of the Flavor and Fragrance Cluster in the state of Pahang.

Evolva is a pioneer and global leader in sustainable, fermentation-based approaches to ingredients for health, wellness and nutrition.

The Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation (BiotechCorp), the country’s lead development agency for the biotech industry, said the Centre will create value for other industries with significant economic opportunities to benefit Malaysia’s Bioeconomy agenda.

“Malaysia has abundant natural products with high potential to be developed into high purity as well as active ingredients for the cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and other high-end industries,” said BiotechCorp chief executive officer, Dato’ Dr Mohd Nazlee Kamal.

The production of agarwood fragrances via yeast fermentation is the Centre’s project, which will allow Malaysia to significantly widen the use of agarwood worldwide, and will complement the existing traditional production approaches.

Evolva CEO Neil Goldsmith thanked BiotechCorp for facilitating this collaboration. “We are looking forward to working with the passionate and talented researchers at UMP to determine if agarwood compounds might be amenable to production via biosynthesis and yeast fermentation. If successful, this Centre’s global and multi-disciplinary efforts will produce both positive economic and environmental benefits for us all,” he said.

Agarwood has been prized for centuries by incense and perfume makers, and traditional medicine practitioners, but according to data collected by the Wild Trade Monitoring Network, the global supply of wild agarwood could vanish from the planet in less than two years.