Genomatica Adds Chemical Industry Leaders to Commercialize Revolutionary Technology

SAN DIEGO, April 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Genomatica, a leading sustainable chemical company, announced today that two high-profile chemical industry leaders have joined the executive team to commercialize a robust portfolio of chemicals and chemical intermediates derived from renewable feedstocks. The company has appointed Dennis McGrew as executive vice president of business development and chief business officer, and Joseph Kuterbach as the vice president of operations, engineering and technology transfer.  Both executives join at a critical juncture for the company, following the initial close of a $15 million fundraising round and just before the rapid scale-up of its flagship manufacturing process.  

McGrew and Kuterbach join the executive team, which includes founder and CEO Christophe Schilling and Chief Technology Officer Mark Burk. Both McGrew and Kuterbach bring decades of direct chemical industry experience and relationships to their newly appointed roles. Most recently, McGrew served as president and CEO of NatureWorks, the global leader in bio-plastics, which he joined after a series of commercial executive roles at Dow Chemical, while Kuterbach is a career veteran of Lyondell Basell where he was most recently the manager of process engineering for butanediol, ethylene oxide, propylene oxide and acetyls.

"With an executive team of this caliber, Genomatica is poised to lead the market in commercializing sustainable chemicals," said Patrick McCroskey, principal at TPG Biotech and member of Genomatica's board of directors. "Since co-founding the company, Christophe Schilling has guided the team through successive milestones to perfect the platform while Mark Burk has achieved rapid success producing BDO and other chemicals on the way. Combined with industry veteran board members William Baum, Warren Clark, and Robert Pangborn, the additions of Dennis McGrew and Joseph Kuterbach provide Genomatica with extensive chemical market expertise and foresight. The team's combined network of industry relationships has driven considerable interest in the 'sustainable chemicals' vision that Genomatica is bringing to market."

"Dennis McGrew and Joseph Kuterbach bring decades of direct experience in Genomatica's target markets each with substantial careers with two of the largest chemical companies in the world," said Christophe Schilling, president and CEO of Genomatica. "They are vital assets to the leadership team and to the company's vision of commercializing bio-based BDO and other sustainable chemicals."

Genomatica has begun the commercialization process of 1,4-butanediol (BDO), a key raw material in the manufacturing of hundreds of plastic, rubber and fiber products. BDO has a worldwide annual production value estimated at more than $4 billion across the automotive, textile and consumer goods industries.

McGrew's primary focus with Genomatica will be developing commercial partnerships and strategic relationships to bring Genomatica's bio-manufacturing processes to commercial scale. He will focus on three types of customers: existing producers of BDO or other chemical intermediates, sugar producers or other upstream suppliers of low-cost feedstocks, and large consumers of BDO and its derivatives or other chemical intermediates, including fibers manufacturers, and plastic resin suppliers. McGrew will also look to facilitate relationships throughout supply chains to bring low-cost, performance-equivalent bio-based chemical intermediates to market.

McGrew served as CEO of NatureWorks from 2006 to 2008, attracting a new investor and securing capital to double its production capacity to 300 million pounds per year.  From April 2004 to January 2006, McGrew served as NatureWorks' vice president and chief marketing officer, gaining significant market traction by leading global commercial efforts for NatureWorks PLA packaging and Ingeo™ fibers, environmentally beneficial replacements for petroleum-based materials. He has more than two decades of sales, marketing and business development experience. McGrew served as Dow Chemical's global commercial director for the Engineering Plastics business and commercial director for Dow Automotive Europe. He joined Dow in 1983 as a sales representative, and during his 20 year career with Dow, he held numerous sales, product management, marketing and business development roles with the organization.

Kuterbach has established himself as a 30-year veteran of the chemical industry with extensive management and process design, engineering, and operations experience. As Genomatica's vice president of operations, engineering and technology transfer, he will be responsible for driving the demonstration plant scale-up of BDO and commercial scale-up of the technology with future customer-partners.

While at Lyondell Basell, Kuterbach was a recognized engineering leader having managed teams of process engineers, providing technical support, and driving capital expansions to the ethylene oxide plant, acetic acid and BDO units in Texas, as well as the propylene oxide plants in Texas, France, and the Netherlands.  Kuterbach brings direct experience in the development of novel process technologies for chemicals such as BDO, having managed a newly constructed BDO unit in the Netherlands, and provided the process design for the plant, along with transferring technical knowledge to the local staff and offering start-up support. His leadership and effort to troubleshoot operating problems and include technology improvements in the design of the new BDO unit resulted in a capital cost reduction of 10 percent.

About Genomatica

Genomatica is a sustainable chemicals company developing groundbreaking technologies to transform chemical production processes through bio-manufacturing.  The company targets chemicals that are essential to major industries and are incorporated into products that shape much of the world in which we live. With a proven, proprietary technology platform, Genomatica is creating a robust pipeline of bio-manufacturing processes that targets chemicals with large existing markets.  These processes are aimed to compete head-on with current petrochemical processes, delivering compelling cost advantages and sustainability through renewable feedstock sourcing and less energy intensive processes that will reduce the environmental footprint of the chemical industry while delivering enhanced profitability.  

A privately held company, Genomatica is backed by top venture capital firms Alloy Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Mohr Davidow Ventures and TPG Biotech. Genomatica is based in San Diego.

SOURCE Genomatica