INRAE, Evolugate Enter Option License Agreement to Advance Probiotics to Manage Human Cholesterol

PARIS, May 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- INRAE, is pleased to announce that it has entered into an exclusive option license agreement with biotechnology company Evolugate of Gainesville, FL to optimize its probiotic to manage human hypercholesterolemia, a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases.

INRAE is the first worldwide research institute in agronomy. INRAE-Micalis has been investigating the human microbiome to identify microbes that can influence hypercholesterolemia. They have selected microbes that degrade or sequester cholesterol and hydrolyze bile acids. The goal of this collaboration is to identify future probiotic candidates that can reduce circulating LDL and to discover ways of increasing the population of these microbes in the human microbiome.

Evolugate has a keen interest in entering the therapeutic and probiotic markets by improving the performance of microorganisms that have beneficial health effects. "Being able to improve complex traits of phenotypes without the caveats which result in a GMO is key to us in this type of project," says Eudes de Crecy, CEO of Evolugate, adding, "We very much believe our technology is ideal for this aspect, resulting in a probiotic that can gently amend the microbiome of human hosts in the right direction with the better metabolic performance of the improved organism."

Evolugate and INRAE will set up a collaboration for the development of novel probiotic micro-organisms capable of lowering LDL.

About INRAE
French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE) is a major player in research and innovation. It is a community of 12,000 people with 268 research, experimental research, and support units located in 18 regional centers throughout France. Internationally, INRAE is among the top research organizations in the agricultural and food sciences as well as in the plant and animal sciences. It also ranks 11^th globally in ecology and environmental science. It is the world's leading research organization specializing in agriculture, food, and the environment. INRAE's main goal is to be a key player in the transitions necessary to address major global challenges. Faced with a growing world population, climate change, resource scarcity, and declining biodiversity, the institute is developing solutions that involve multi-performance agriculture, high-quality food, and the sustainable management of resources and ecosystems. Visit www.inrae.fr

About Evolugate
Evolugate, LLC, a privately owned biotechnology company, is the leading evolution biotechnology company that focuses on the development and improvement of microorganisms for diverse industrial purposes.  Evolugate's technology offers the ability to improve existing bio-processes as well as to create new ones through the utilization of a reliable and proprietary continuous culture technology. Using rapid evolution and natural selection, Evolugate is able to improve microorganisms for use in the biopesticides, probiotics, agronomy, pharmaceutical, and bioremediation industries. The company is located in Gainesville, Florida. For more information, visit www.evolugate.com

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SOURCE Evolugate LLC