Gamble of the week: innovative biochemical engineer

Big-name brands are queuing up to get their hands on this biotech's discovery, says Paul Hill - a way to create biofuels and various other products from genetically modified yeast.

California-based Amyris is an innovator in biochemical manufacturing. The firm has discovered a way to bio-manufacture a molecule called farnesene by modifying the genetic make-up of yeast. The technology is patent-protected. It was originally intended for the healthcare industry and is already licensed out for free to Sanofi-aventis to help it make artemisinin, an antimalarial drug.

But by genetically modifying the yeast that makes the drug, the end product changes from artemisinin to farnesene, which can then itself be modified to make a form of biofuel and products as diverse as detergents, cosmetics, engine lubricants and transport fuels.

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Paul gained a degree in electrical engineering and went on to qualify as a chartered management accountant. He has extensive corporate finance and investment experience and is a member of the Securities Institute.

Over the past 16 years Paul has held top-level financial management and M&A roles for blue-chip companies such as O2, GKN and Unilever. He is now director of his own capital investment and consultancy firm, PMH Capital Limited.

Paul is an expert at analysing companies in new, fast-growing markets, and is an extremely shrewd stock-picker.