Impact case study database

Impact from Northumbria’s biocatalysis research has been primarily delivered through and for Prozomix Limited, a privately-owned, research-intensive biotechnology company based in the UK that is focused on the discovery and production of biocatalysis enzymes. Prozomix is one of only six companies in the world specialising in biocatalysis enzymes and its customer base includes ten of the eleven leading pharmaceutical companies, along with prominent synthetic biology companies. Prozomix has benefitted from the research in three ways: (i) bringing new and improved products to market, (ii) resulting commercial benefits, and (iii) business growth. More broadly, there are efficiency and environmental benefits that have resulted from the new green chemistry processes built on Northumbria’s research.

Visiting Professor Simon Charnock, the Managing Director of Prozomix, acknowledges that, without Northumbria research, the company ‘would not have been able to gain the market share it has’ [ E1]. In particular, four areas of product development have been identified as key to the company’s success. Northumbria research and collaboration since 2011 has led to ‘very large diverse panels of biocatalysts developed that now comprise the popular Prozomix biocatalysis Enzyme Toolkit’ [ E1, E2]. This product has enabled Prozomix to rapidly become a global player in the enzyme screening market [ E1]. Meantime, the applied metagenomics work enabled Prozomix to ‘quickly and cost-effectively develop beyond state-of-the-art “maximum diversity” proprietary enzyme panels’ [ E1].

Further to this, Northumbria’s research led to the development of numerous additional panels of enzymes, key to taking market share, for example of carbonyl reductases from the KRED superfamily. In this case, ‘not only did Northumbria devise the metagenomic sequencing and data analysis strategy, but they also aided in the design of a rapid and efficient method of analysing/screening the novel KREDs generated’ [ E1]. This resulted in the kREDy-to-go^TM product, which utilises Northumbria’s novel, high-throughput colorimetric screening technology [ R6; E1; E3, p3] and has made the screening of enzymes much cheaper, easier, and quicker for Prozomix’s customers [ E2]. Another highly desirable panel of enzymes enabled by the Northumbria collaboration is Prozomix’s range of cytochrome P450 enzymes [ E4, p2]. These represent a large enzyme superfamily, members of which catalyse the oxidation of a wide range of organic substrates. This has enabled Prozomix to enter the drug metabolism market. These enzymes have generated significant revenues from customers in the flavour/fragrance and chemical industries [ E1].

The new and improved products that Prozomix has brought to market through their work with Northumbria University have resulted in commercial benefits for the company, including ‘lucrative enzyme discovery and supply agreements with 10/11 of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, now a source of significant and rapidly rising sales revenue’ [ E5]. It has also resulted in more than 50% market share of biocatalysis screening within the pharmaceutical industry [ E5]. As well as growing its market share, the company has adapted its business plan in the light of work with Northumbria [ E6]. The increased number of enzyme panels gave Prozomix the opportunity to move away from its one-off ‘hit fee only’ based model to a long-term (20 years per hit) recurring revenue stream from all panels offered by the company [ E6]. [Text removed for publication] signed-up to the new agreement very quickly, demonstrating that the expanding collection of panels within the Biocatalysis Enzyme Toolkit were compatible with the intended target market. Virtually universal interest from the leading pharmaceutical companies has followed in the current overall Toolkit offering, with Prozomix viewed by this sector as an emerging leader in this highly lucrative industry category [ E6].

As a result of the success underpinned by Northumbria research, in 2015 Prozomix’s business model expanded by entering the contract bulk enzyme production market. This expansion involved increasing manufacturing space from 3,000 ft² to 11,000 ft² by purchasing a factory in Northumberland, and further significant investment in pilot and production equipment. Despite such significant investment, take-up by clients was such that Prozomix benefitted from a return on investment after only two years [ E5]. Prozomix is currently expanding its fermentation capacity further still, from 1,000 L to 7,000 L total working volume, sufficient to supply the global annual demand for most enzymes requested. Prozomix will thus shortly become the only company in the sector offering initial enzyme discovery through to annual production capacity, all in-house [ E5].

Without the specialist expertise of Northumbria researchers [ R1- R4], Prozomix would not have been able to secure participation in its first EU FP7 grant, KYROBIO (2011-2015), success in which led the company to participate in five further Horizon 2020 projects, with grant income totalling [text removed for publication] [ E1]. Additional evidence of the importance of the relationship between Prozomix and Northumbria University is the rapid creation of a highly experienced company workforce, through employment of PhD level scientists trained at Northumbria University [ E1].

Beyond Prozomix operations, Northumbria’s green chemistry research has benefitted users of the products and wider society. A Prozomix customer, [text removed for publication], was able to identify a transaminase enzyme from a Northumbria sequenced metagenome, which is now used to manufacture weed suppressant [ E5]. In 2020, [text removed for publication] acquired this enzyme from [text removed for publication] for a process that will produce 25,000 tons of material [ E7]. The new transaminase enzyme makes the product significantly more efficient, reducing the amount of material that farmers need to apply to control weeds by up to 50%, which will substantially reduce operating costs and environmental impact and thus improve the sustainability of the weed control process [ E7]. Finally, numerous recent enzyme hits have been identified by Prozomix pharmaceutical clients for use in the manufacture of drugs against COVID-19. These KRED hits were mined from metagenomic data sequenced by Northumbria, identified through the clients’ use of kREDy-to-go^TM screening [ E5].

Overall, Prozomix confirms [ E1, E5] that, without Black and colleagues, the company would not have been able to secure such an excellent reputation, market position and turnover [text removed for publication] in such a short period of time. Prozomix acknowledges that the relationship with Northumbria University has been invaluable in driving their strategy, in developing their network of contacts, supplying the company with new talent, helping to develop new in-house techniques, and supporting their knowledge and understanding of the enzyme discovery field from research. As Dr Ruth Lloyd, the Operations Director, noted: ‘I can absolutely affirm that our commanding strategic technical position and well-respected global brand would not have been achieved without the support from the Black Group and others at Northumbria’ [ E5].