Aduro Biopolymers Announce Technology Licensing Partnership

Aduro Biopolymers and Eastern BioPlastics Announce Technology Licensing and Commercialization Partnership

HAMILTON, New Zealand – February 24, 2015 – Aduro Biopolymers LP and Wallace Corporation today announced they have signed an exclusive regional agreement with US-based Eastern BioPlastics, LLC (EBP) for the commercialization of EBP’s Feather Intermediate and Feathersorb TM.

FeatherSorb™ is an environmentally-friendly cost-effective industrial absorbent product range engineered to provide better absorbency and cost performance for fuel, oil, paint and chemical solvent spills and clean up applications. FeatherSorb™ is made from poultry feathers which are processed into a Feather Intermediate (“FI”) with extraordinary properties and characteristics including absorbency, buoyancy, insulation against heat and cold, flame resistance, and filtration. The proprietary and scalable manufacturing process for FI and FeatherSorb™ was developed and perfected by EBP, which is based in Mount Crawford, VA.

The agreement paves the way for Aduro to become the exclusive manufacturer and distributor for Feather Intermediate and FeatherSorb in Australia, New Zealand, and the other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Aduro Biopolymers is a research, development and manufacturing company located in Hamilton, New Zealand and entered into the agreement with Wallace Corporation, New Zealand’s leading co-product partner to the food processing industry and an Aduro shareholder. Aduro Biopolymers was formed from a partnership between Wallace Corporation and WaikatoLink Limited, the technology transfer company of the University of Waikato.

“Aduro Biopolymers and Wallace Corporation are perfect partners for EBP at this stage in our growth,” said Sonny Meyerhoeffer, EBP Founder and CEO. “Wallace Corporation is proactively looking for opportunities to increase the economic returns it makes from the processing of primary sector raw materials and Aduro’s mission is to develop and manufacture a range of products and materials from bio-derived sources including polymers and materials that offer a cost effective solution for use in plastics, composites, agriculture and horticulture, manufacturing, construction and other sectors.”

“We are excited at the opportunity to collaborate with EBP,” said Darren Harpur, CEO of Aduro Biopolymers. “We believe EBP’s proprietary processes for producing FI from poultry feathers has tremendous potential in consumer, industrial, emergency response and disaster areas of the absorbents market, which will be our initial focus. We’re also interested in exploring other markets for FI including insulation and filtration applications and as a material blended with plastics to make composites. We are looking forward to a long and mutually rewarding partnership.”

CEO of Wallace Corporation Graham Shortland says in the global poultry industry feathers are currently almost exclusively used to produce feather meal, which is a high protein ingredient for certain animal feeds, and that this agreement created the potential to deliver higher returns from processed feathers. “We are always looking for innovations that will help us sustainably deliver greater value from raw materials so this is a great opportunity for both companies.”

In addition to this initiative with EBP, Aduro is in the final stages of a product development program using its proprietary bioplastic Novatein® for products used within the red meat industry.

EBP’s agreement with Aduro and Wallace follows a recently signed European distribution agreement. The FeatherSorb™ product range is currently being used in a wide range of settings in the US from airports and ports, to breweries and auto parts makers. Meyerhoeffer says, “The feedback has been very encouraging. A great example is Dynamic Aviation based near us in Virginia which has told us it’s a better alternative to the leading competitors, it’s cheaper, and it’s bio-degradable. Their mechanics like it because the FeatherSorb holds and retains the oil without any leaching and is much better than our competitors.”

According to Mr. Meyerhoeffer, the rapidly growing global industrial absorbents industry, which the FeatherSorbTM products target, is a $2.5 billion market. EBP has also launched two FI-based bioplastic resins, MegaPelletTM and Emerald ResinTM, for resin producers and compounders.

-ENDS-

© Scoop Media