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Zymergen, FMC Form Crop Protection Technology Alliance

NEW YORK — Zymergen has partnered with agricultural sciences firm FMC on the development of new crop protection technologies, the companies said on Thursday.

The companies said they will combine Zymergen's metagenomic database, which includes over 1 million gene clusters, and its bioinformatics and fermentation capabilities with FMC's agricultural expertise and molecule-discovery pipeline to develop products targeting biochemical processes specific to crop pests.

"Our goal is to convert the complexity of nature to create useful products that allow growers to better control pests and diseases," Zymergen Cofounder and CSO Zach Serber said in a statement.

In early 2018, Emeryville, California-based Zymergen acquired metagenomics firm Radiant Genomics.

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