DIREVO Biotech AG

In 2000, a new company, DIREVO Biotech AG, was spun out of the renowned Max Planck Institute in Germany to commercialize the groundbreaking research of its co-founder, Nobel Laureate Manfred Eigen. The company was built on a powerful concept called directed evolution. Its core business was a high-throughput technology platform designed to rapidly discover and optimize proteins and enzymes for both the pharmaceutical and industrial sectors. The playbook was clear: create a factory for better bio-molecules. DIREVO's platform could engineer superior therapeutic proteins for drug development or create more efficient enzymes for industrial processes, partnering with giants like Danisco. This strategy attracted significant investment and positioned the company as a leader in the specialized field of protein engineering. The pivotal moment arrived in September 2008. Bayer HealthCare announced it would acquire DIREVO Biotech in an all-cash deal valued at €210 million. Bayer sought to integrate DIREVO's powerful biopharmaceutical discovery engine to bolster its own pipeline of biological drugs. In a concurrent and strategic move, DIREVO's industrial biotechnology unit was spun off into a separate entity, DIREVO Industrial Biotechnology GmbH, backed by the original investors to continue its work outside of pharma. This allowed the core pharmaceutical technology to be absorbed by a major player while letting the industrial side of the business continue on its own trajectory.