Mission & Strategy

Evolva discovers and provides innovative, sustainable ingredients for health, nutrition and wellness.

Evolva’s technology platform has a very broad range of possible applications, stretching from biofuels to pharmaceuticals. It can deliver both novel products as well as new ways of producing existing ones.

However, this same versatility presents us with a welcome problem: we can’t possibly follow up on all the opportunities the technology provides. As a company, we therefore need a clear focus. Hence the mission statement:

“To discover and provide innovative, sustainable ingredients for health, nutrition and wellness”

We will pursue a business to business model, providing products and processes to companies in the food and beverage, consumer health and pharmaceutical sectors.

We are particularly interested in ingredients that have disruptive market potential. This in turn deriving from simultaneously providing three benefits that stem from our technology, namely:

• a dramatic improvement in product performance
• much lower production costs
• greatly simplified, and much more controllable, supply chains

Our Stevia, Saffron and Pomecin™ products all embody this disruptive potential

Conversely we will not pursue opportunities in low margin commodities such as biofuels or bulk chemicals. Our products will be produced in relatively low volumes and will have a relatively high price per kilogram.

Why do we think this mission statement is right for Evolva ? This choice of mission statement is driven by three broad considerations.

1. Our competitive strengths

Evolva competitive strengths lie in our innovative technologies, entrepreneurial market thinking and comfort with relatively regulated sectors. These fit the chosen focus. Thus

• There are often major discovery synergies between our products. To give an example, the work we have put into our vanilla product allows us to also create capsaicinoids (the active ingredients of chilli peppers) with applications ranging from analgesia to weight loss.
• Development and production of the products is likewise highly synergistic, with all products built upon a common yeast fermentation approach, and having similar quality considerations
• Our background in highly regulated, science driven, sectors such as pharmaceuticals helps us in working with within the increasing regulation that is being applied to ingredients in food, beverage or personal care products

2. Global economic and market macrotrends, notably:

• The huge growth in the number of “medium affluent” consumers across the world who desire better health and sustainable production at an affordable price.
• Increased consumer awareness of health and nutritional issues, driven by increasing education, increasingly old populations (who are more focused on age) and the spread of the internet. Similar trends are also driving increased focus on products that are environmentally sustainable. Consumers want these benefits without compromising on other aspects such as the products appeal, ease of use and cost.
• Pressures in the developed world for governments to reduce expenditure, including on healthcare. This creates demand (from both governments and consumers) for products that can provide health benefits without the high costs of novel pharmaceuticals

Together these trends create demand for health and wellness products that have appealing properties in terms of convenience, affordability, sustainability and “naturalness” - blurring the borderline between food and pharmaceuticals

3. Financial Risk Adjusted Returns

Focusing on the discovery and provision of ingredients for nutrition and consumer products has benefits in that development costs and risks are considerably lower, and timelines to market significantly shorter, than for pharmaceuticals. At the same time margins can still be very attractive. This means that they offer us, and our shareholders, a better risk adjusted return.

Historically, the bulk of Evolva’s capital has been invested in the development of its pharmaceutical products, which we believe do have considerable value. However, our pipeline has now progressed to the stage where continued development is better undertaken in conjunction with a large, established pharmaceutical company that has the appropriate resources to maximize the value of these compounds.