DuPont’s Industrial Biosciences is purchasing Dyadic International’s Industrial Technology business. The two companies have entered into a definitive agreement that will sell Dyadic’s enzyme business to DuPont for $75 million in cash. Once the transaction is complete, Dyadic plans to focus solely on its biopharmaceutical business. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2015 pending approval by a majority of Dyadic’s stockholders and customary closing conditions.

Mark Emalfarb, Dyadic’s founder and CEO, said, “This transaction is an exceptional opportunity to unlock value and provide Dyadic operational flexibility to further develop our pharmaceutical business. We will now focus our C1 technology exclusively on the pharmaceutical sector where we believe it has the potential to help develop and manufacture drugs and vaccines faster and more efficiently than existing production systems.”

Dyadic will sell to DuPont substantially all of its enzyme and technology assets, including its C1 platform, a technology for producing enzyme products used in a broad range of industries. As part of the transaction, DuPont has granted back to Dyadic co-exclusive rights to the C1 technology for use in human and animal pharmaceutical applications, with exclusive ability to enter into sub-license agreements in that field. However, DuPont will retain certain rights to utilize the C1 technology for development and production of pharmaceutical products, for which it will make royalty payments to Dyadic upon commercialization.

“We are very proud of the C1 platform and our team responsible for its development over the past decade,” added Michael Tarnok, Dyadic’s Chairman. “We are pleased to be able to provide liquidity and increased value to our stockholders and look forward to building our pharmaceutical business.”