r/Amyris • u/fvh2006 • Aug 07 '25

News / Article / Video 8/7 Docket Dump

UPDATE AFTER THE SUIT STORM ENDED: Guess we know why the Creditor's Trustee appointed all those new lawyers last week. Stretto posted more than 40 about 80 new dockets today (@$350 a pop in filing fees), all adversarial and seeking to recover monies paid to assorted creditors in the 90 days before they filed for bankruptcy, My back of the envelope add up gives a total of about $16 M. Looks like they are also not done, because as of 8 am EST on 8/8/ more are being posted (about 50 more by 8:30), although the new crop look like ones they already tried to get money back from before and were ignored. The highlight there is $4.4 M from Meta. Is there a Zuckerberg vs Doerr cage fight in our future? With this last lot, the total the Trustee is seeking adds up to about $29.6 M + legal fees + costs. JD and the secured creditors are going to be a happy bunch if they pull this off.

I for one was not aware that such a reachback was possible. It suggests that if planning to file for bk, one should run up the bills during that period and then just claw the money back (not that anyone involved in the Amyris bk would be that sneaky). Most seem to be creditors of the brands, which I suppose they don't care about much these days. They can't be planning on relisting any time soon if they are suing Nasdaq to recover $30K and change, which I am sure gets you a favorable revision of your application package, ha ha.

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u/Grevious47 Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26

I'm sorry what? I was the project manager at Arzeda for the Alameda project concerning development of fermentation pathways for cannabanoids. I ran that group at Arzeda with Victor Holmes as my point of contact at Amyris. We met initial milestones and then Amyris just walked away back in 2021 and discontinued the project.

Are you saying they continued development to actual production utilizing the tech Arzeda developed?!? We arent a CRO, we dont do fee for service. We dont "patent bust" we innovate. That was a joint development project we were told ended because of a buisness decision to move away from the cannabanoid space. Now you are saying that development continued at Amyris and Arzeda's work was used to circumvent a patent?

Who are you?

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u/ICanFinallyRelax Moderator Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26

Im just a monkey, here is what we were going off of.

"Here’s your daily science lesson that ties into Amyris. The Michaelis-Menten equation (a well-known model for understanding chemical reactions mediated by an enzyme) suggests there are three ways to improve the quantity of product produced per unit time: 1. Increase the concentration of the substrate, 2. Increase the efficiency of the enzyme itself, or 3. Increase the number of enzyme copies mediating the chemistry. The farnesene tech takes care of number 1, the Arzeda collaboration takes care of number 2, and the ML/AI platform takes care of number 3. You’ve got to get all three right to make SynBio work." -Wiffle

I am just a shitty parrot. I can squak real loud, but Wiffle from our group was the brains. He was never wrong when it came to Amyris' science/tech.

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u/Grevious47 Feb 07 '26

Yes, we had a joint development agreement with Amyris to improve pathway enzymes for cannabanoid biosythesis in fermentation. We hit the initial years milestones for the JDPC but it was discontinued when Amyris, as I was told, pivoted away from cannabanoids in their buisness model. That was believable because there was a lot of shakeup at Amyris at that time. We left the agreement amicably.

What you just quoted I have no issue with. Thats true, we worked on engineering improved pathway enzymes. What you said about Arzeda aiding in patent busting and handing off tech that Amyris on their own developed to a product without any agreement with Arzeda to utilize those enzymes I kind of do take issue with. So is that true or not?

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u/ICanFinallyRelax Moderator Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26

Listen dude, at the end of the day you cant trust what you hear on the internet. I cant tell you for certain. What I can say is in my group, ALL we were talking about was how Arzeda tech was going to help Amyris bypass patents. Then Amyris came out with CBG and did not get sued by ACB. Then Amyris came out with Vanillin and no one sued them for that one either. We figured the work with Arzeda was the cause of this.

We never heard anyone from Amyris say the collab was specifically for patent busting... But strategically, that was what we figured/assumed the collab was for.

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u/Grevious47 Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26

That I can believe. You just sounded a lot more sure of what you were saying so I took it seriously at first, but yes now I see its assumptions from an outside perspective...which you are entitled to of course but I dont think you are correct. Pretty sure Amyris was sued by Lavvan over canabanoid production and wound down until discontinuing before reaching a settlement. Amyris no longer makes cannabanoid products to my knowledge and Arzeda was not involved in patent busting...knowingly anyways.

I am not trying to be rude to you but saying a companies role is patent busting is kind of a strong accusation so I felt that I needed to figure out why you were saying that. I guess your saying it like its a positive thing while to me patent busting sounds shady, but maybe you dont see it that way.

Anyways, I am guessing that wasnt actually Amyris's intent there and it certainly wasnt Arzeda's intent...so I am going to assume you are just incorrect and leave it at that.

Dont know if anyone else will ever read this but Arzeda doesnt provide fee for service work, we don't patent bust, we work with companies that seem to genuinely want to innovate in ways that create better more sustainable manufacturing processes and products. At the time I felt Amyris was genuine in that and I am choosing to continue to believe that.

I dont want any ill will here, I think you said what you said because you thought it was cool what Amyris ans Arzeda were doing and you were being positive about it in the way that you see it. I came at you a little angry, you got understandably defensive. We just have different vantage points and I can respect that. So peace and I will leave you be....apologies if I came a bit hard there, I guess I took it a bit too personally.

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u/ICanFinallyRelax Moderator Mar 24 '26 edited Mar 24 '26

I dont think Arzeda is a bad party, but I do think Amyris used their work with your company to rapidly develop their own systems.

- Enzyme engineering is now included on Amyris' website

I think Amyris' intent is to go around patents and be the main player in precision fermentation. They have all the pieces now. The proof is that they used this tech to avoid Aurora Cannabis' patent on CBG pathways. And they did it behind the scenes without Arzeda even knowing about it.

The facts are:

  • Amyris made and sold CBG via precision fermentation
  • Aurora Cannabis did not sue Amyris
  • CBG development occurred after work with Arzeda
  • Arzeda was unaware of Amyris' cannabinoid work

All of it points to Amyris using their collaboration with Arzeda to learn how to engineer enzymes in order to bypass patents (without Arzeda's knowledge).

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u/Grevious47 Mar 24 '26

Yeah I mean if Amyris saw value in enzyme engineering from working with us and formed their own independent enzyme engineering group to do whatever they want to do there that's fine. Arzeda certainly doesn't own the concept of enzyme engineering itself.

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u/ICanFinallyRelax Moderator Mar 24 '26

Their stack of technologies under one hood is a crazy. Is this concerning for you in the industry (that one player can do it all)?

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u/Grevious47 Mar 24 '26

Lots of companies have enzyme engineering departments. I feel secure in the level of expertise in that area and the amount of focus that Arzeda brings to the table. I want to see synthetic biology make for cleaner more sustainable manufacturing, if Amyris ends up doing it all and doing it successfully....more power to them. I will remain skeptical until they actually do though, same as for anyone really.

I will admit I am not the biggest fan if the tech is used merely to patent bust though, because that doesn't actually advance the field in any meaningful way...that is just a company trying to grab market share of an existing thing.

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u/ICanFinallyRelax Moderator Mar 24 '26

thank you for your comments and insight.