Under a three-year agreement, Merck gains non-exclusive access to proprietary Codexis biocatalysts for in-house application to its drug development pipeline. No other terms were disclosed. Merck joins an expanding stable of high-profile pharmaceutical clients for the US biotechnology company's biocatalytic processes, including Pfizer, Schering-Plough, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Teva and Sandoz.

Biocatalysts are used to jack up productivity and reduce costs by simplifying chemical transformations in R&D and manufacturing. According to Codexis, its technologies can cut the cost of goods by 40 to 70 per cent and capital expenditure by more than 35 per cent.

Introduced in February, the Codex Biocatalyst Panels enable customers to determine in-house whether and where Codexis' MolecularBreeding process re-engineering platform is applicable across their pipeline. The next-generation product comprises sets of diagnostic enzyme panels in 96-well format that are used to screen for reactivity in process reactions.

The enzymes have been optimised for pharmaceutical manufacturing through gene shuffling, a proprietary technique that recombines the DNA of gene or genomic variants. Codexis claims the enzymes' activity on selected compounds can be determined within two weeks, while the biocatalyst panels use significantly lower quantities of raw material and produce less waste than comparable methods.

The panel data then enable Codexis to move quickly into developing product-specific, customised biocatalysts and biocatalytic processes for its clients. According to president and chief executive officer Dr Alan Shaw, Codex Biocatalyst Panels can reduce overall development times for new biocatalysts from months to weeks.