Diversa Will Voluntarily Maintain Commitment to Its Agreement With Yellowstone National Park.

SAN DIEGO--(BW HealthWire)--Diversa Corporation today announced that it will voluntarily fulfill the scientific and economic obligations that it committed to under its August 1997 agreement with Yellowstone National Park. The agreement was suspended by a Federal judge on March 24 pending the completion of an environmental impact report by the National Park Service. Terms of the five-year agreement had included payment of royalties to Yellowstone based on the revenues generated from Diversa's Yellowstone-related research activities, according to Jay M. Short, Ph.D., Diversa's Chief Executive Officer.

"We firmly believe that benefit sharing to support conservation is the right thing to do," Dr. Short said. "We will cooperate with Yellowstone to ensure compliance with the judge's memorandum pending completion of the review process. Since 1994, we have collected water, soil and sediment samples during supervised research trips to the Park. We began to explore applications based on products derived from the research performed at Yellowstone following the 1997 signing of the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the Park. Should any compounds derived from that work become commercially viable, we will voluntarily pay Yellowstone royalties as stipulated in the agreement."

Diversa has collected samples worldwide from unusual locations, such as ocean floor thermal vents and rotting whale carcasses, in addition to its research activities under the agreements it has signed with Iceland, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Indonesia. Using its proprietary technology, Diversa scientists can directly access DNA from these uncultured samples, identifying enzymes and biomolecules that might be useful in industrial processes, agricultural applications or as potential pharmaceuticals. These compounds are further optimized using a set of novel Diversa technologies to enhance their specificity and effectiveness. To date, two high-performance enzymes discovered by Diversa have been incorporated into commercial products.

"For over 100 years, scientists have been permitted to perform research in Yellowstone and gained an immense amount of knowledge about the organisms, plants and animals living in this still largely unexplored wilderness," Dr. Short added. "The CRADA provides a path whereby Yellowstone can share in the economic success of research involving biological samples collected under the Park's permit system."

Diversa is accessing nature's biodiversity for the rapid development of novel bioactive compounds and enzymes for use by agricultural, specialty chemical/industrial and pharmaceutical markets. Since 1994, it has discovered in excess of 700 novel enzymes, significantly exceeding the total number available from all other suppliers. It currently has customers worldwide and has entered into seven strategic alliances: Dow Chemical Company, Finnfeeds, Roche BioScience (a Roche Holdings Company), Sigma-Aldrich Co., Halliburton Energy Services (a business unit of Halliburton Company), and Novartis Agribusiness Biotechnology Research, Inc. (an affiliate of Novartis). Diversa has signed other agreements with Iceland, Indonesia, Costa Rica, and Mexico to explore and discover novel enzymes and bioactive molecules from microorganisms living in these diverse areas.