Recently Aurora announced they were going to defend their intellectual property (IP) against any companies infringing on it. I’ve been thinking about who they’re talking about defending their IP from, there are numerous companies claiming to have engineered cannabinoid biosynthesis in microorganisms but only one that has shown to be able to get around existing IP. The vast majority of companies claiming this feat have published patent applications that include patented steps, owned by Aurora and 22nd Century Group, in the pathway they’re trying to patent. I’ve written several articles highlighting this unusual phenomena, most recently with Hyasynth Biologicals. 

Amyris is a company I’ve talked about before, they’re currently engaged in a legal dispute with Lavvan over an IP agreement to develop cannabinoid biosynthesis in microorganisms. Since then they’ve had some notable activity in the cannabinoid space. The first is the publication of a patent application that, perhaps unsurprisingly, describes a cannabinoid biosynthetic pathway containing steps that have been patented previously. Like Hyasynth Biologicals, Amyris has also claimed they’ve sold cannabinoids produced using their microbial system, which would infringe on existing IP if either company is using the cannabinoid production system described in their respective patent applications. They doubled down a couple of months ago and announced they were going to sell 1 million ‘units’ of CBG in the next 12 months. 

Other companies such as Willow Biosciences, Demetrix and Lygos have announced potential supply agreements, but none have actually sold any product to my knowledge. When suing for patent infringement, including damages in the suit can be quite lucrative, but the infringing party needs to have received profits from the infringement. Amyris, unlike Hyasynth Biologicals, is a multi-billion dollar company with a portfolio of products produced through microbial biosynthesis. Based on their size and relative aggressiveness of commercialization of microbial produced cannabinoids, I believe Amyris could be the first company Aurora and 22nd Century Group file a patent infringement claim against. 

The author has no position in Aurora or Willow Biosciences. The author owns shares in 22nd Century Group. The author owns puts in Amyris.