Codexis, Inc. is a protein engineering company that develops enzymes for pharmaceutical, food and medical applications.

History

Codexis is based in Redwood City, CA and was incorporated in 2002. It went public in April 2010 on NASDAQ, and in October, acquired Maxygen's MolecularBreeding technology portfolio.

Pharmaceutical

Codexis won the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2006 for its work on a building block of Lipitor. It then won a second time in 2010 for its work with Merck & Co. on the active ingredient in Januvia.

Nutrition

In 2017, the company entered a partnership with Tate & Lyle to provide research and development for the production of new ingredients. That same year, Codexis announced a collaboration with Nestle to provide enzymes for metabolic disorders.

Biotherapeutics

In 2017, Codexis developed a recombinant phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) enzyme, to act as a substitute phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH) enzyme for people who suffer from phenylketonuria. The enzyme was in-licensed by Nestle Health Sciences. In 2020, Takeda Pharmaceutical announced a collaboration with Codexis to research and create gene therapies for rare diseases, including lysosomal storage disorders.

Life science

In June 2020, they announced a partnership with Molecular Assemblies to engineer enzymes for DNA synthesis.

Technology

Codexis uses directed evolution to develop its enzymes. Using this method, scientists genetically engineer genes, then screen the enzymes produced to see if it creates the properties needed for a specific reaction. Their protein engineering platform, called CodeEvolver, uses machine learning and high-throughput experimentation to learn protein sequence changes and their impacts on protein function.