Firm Signs Bioprospecting Pact With Yellowstone

Diversa Corp. said it signed a five-year agreement to search for new organisms living in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park for possible commercial use.

Closely held Diversa, known until last week as Recombinant Biocatalysis Inc., said the agreement will give it expanded access to the park’s numerous hot springs, and the park’s administrators will get access to Diversa’s findings and royalties from products discovered through the agreement.

San Diego-based Diversa, which discovers and licenses enzymes based on organisms living in hot springs, has similar agreements in Iceland and Costa Rica. This is the first such “bioprospecting” agreement signed in the U.S, the company said.

Diversa has worked in Yellowstone before, but on a more limited basis and without compensating the park at all. Likewise, other companies will still be able to use the park’s resources, but not with the same level of access as Diversa. Yellowstone, in northwestern Wyoming, has about 10,000 hot springs, geysers and other “thermal features.”

Founded in 1994, Diversa has 36 enzymes licensed to pharmaceutical and chemical companies and other researchers.

The company is negotiating with four other major potential customers and an initial public offering could come next year, Diversa President Don Garaventi said.

Under the agreement, Diversa will pay the park an undisclosed annual sum, which can be credited against royalties from any future products. At the park, small teams of Diversa scientists will use small steel cups to take a water sample from pools of nearly boiling water. The samples will then be analyzed at the company’s laboratories in San Diego.