Bedoukian Research, Inc. and Ardra Inc. Announce a Strategic Collaboration Agreement

Bedoukian Research, Inc. (“BRI”) and Ardra Inc. (“Ardra”) announced the signing of a collaboration agreement to develop synthetic, biology-based, natural flavor and fragrance ingredients. Under the terms of the agreement, the two organizations will collaborate to produce and market natural ingredients within the family of green leaf volatiles, with uses in food and perfumery.

Consistent, high-quality production of natural ingredients is a significant challenge in the flavor and fragrance industry. Synthetic biology-based production has great potential as a foundational platform for sustainable biomanufacturing of natural aroma and flavor ingredients. Collaboration between BRI and Ardra focuses on developing biomanufacturing processes with the goal of leading to commercial scale production.

The process for producing natural green leaf volatiles was developed using Ardra’s synthetic biology platform for designing and constructing novel biochemical pathways. “Ardra’s proprietary pathways are more suitable for industrial processes and enable more sustainable production of food and flavor ingredients, in contrast to harvesting them from botanicals,” said Pratish Gawand, CEO of Ardra. “BRI’s contributions prior to this formal agreement have been tremendously helpful. They provided critical feedback on our process, evaluated sensory qualities of our product, and advised on purification processes to yield food-grade final products. We look forward to the next evolutionary step in our relationship with BRI.”

“Green leaf volatiles are an important class of ingredients that are used in numerous flavor and perfumery formulations to provide green notes,” said Robert Bedoukian, President of BRI. “Ardra has made significant progress developing its synthetic biology platform, and we look forward to working with Ardra’s team to advance the process further towards commercial-scale production of these ingredients.”