Genencor in Palo Alto

When people think of biotech in Palo Alto, they think of drugs. Genencor worked on something more ordinary. It used genetic engineering to make enzymes, the proteins that break down stains in a washing machine, soften denim and turn corn starch into sugar. From the 1990s through the 2000s it ran its global headquarters and main research center from a large building on Page Mill Road in Stanford Research Park.

Genencor changed owners several times, from Genentech and Corning to Kodak, Danisco, DuPont and now IFF. Through all of it the Palo Alto lab kept working. This profile covers the company's origins, its Page Mill Road years and what is there today.

A Genentech and Corning venture

The name comes from Genencor, Inc., a joint venture formed in 1982 by Genentech and Corning. Genentech was the South San Francisco biotech pioneer. Corning was the glass and materials company. Genentech had the gene splicing know-how. Corning brought experience in industrial materials and large scale manufacturing. The idea was to apply recombinant DNA to industrial products instead of medicines.

The ownership shifted quickly. Wikipedia says the food company A.E. Staley invested in 1984. Genencor's own annual report says Eastman Kodak acquired a 25 percent interest in 1987. Then, in 1990, Cultor Ltd. of Finland and Eastman Kodak formed an industrial biotechnology joint venture and acquired Genencor, Inc. The new company, Genencor International, had been incorporated in Delaware in 1989 and began operations in 1990.

• 1993. Eastman Chemical Company took over Kodak's 50 percent stake.
• 1999. Danisco, the Danish food ingredients company, acquired Cultor and with it Cultor's half.
• 2000. Genencor International went public, with Danisco and Eastman each keeping a large stake.

925 Page Mill Road

In its filings Genencor International gave its principal executive office as 925 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, California 94304. Its 2004 annual report describes leased principal offices of about 154,783 square feet there, with a lease running to 2017. The company also had an office in Rochester, New York, a legacy of the Kodak years. Another was in Leiden, in the Netherlands.

The address is on Page Mill Road a short way up from El Camino Real, in the older part of Stanford Research Park. Its next door neighbor at 950 Page Mill Road was the first headquarters of ALZA, Alejandro Zaffaroni's drug delivery company. That site is now Page Mill Labs, a wet lab building for startups. Our Stanford Research Park guide explains how Stanford leases the land.

What Genencor made

An enzyme is a protein that speeds up a specific chemical reaction. Genencor engineered microbes to produce enzymes in large fermentation tanks, then tuned the enzymes so they worked at the temperatures, acidity and conditions that customers needed. Wikipedia credits Genencor with pioneering industrial biotechnology as a field distinct from health care and farming.

By its 2004 annual report the company sold about 420 products and formulations. They fell into four main groups:

At the end of 2004 Genencor had 1,271 active employees, including 83 with PhDs. It also had a health care unit that had not yet brought a product to market.

Why enzymes matter in everyday products

Enzymes are useful because a small amount does a lot of work and then breaks down. In a washing machine, a protease enzyme cuts apart protein stains such as egg, grass or blood, while an amylase handles starch. That lets detergents clean well in cooler water, which saves energy. In a denim mill, enzymes can give jeans a worn look without as much pumice stone. In a corn processing plant, enzymes split starch into the sugars used for sweeteners or for fermentation into ethanol.

The engineering challenge is making an enzyme that survives the real world. A detergent enzyme has to work in hot or cold water next to bleach and surfactants. It also has to keep for months on a store shelf. Genencor's scientists in Palo Alto used protein engineering to change enzymes one building block at a time, then tested which versions held up best. That kind of work is why the company is often described as a pioneer of industrial biotechnology.

Danisco takes over, 2005

On January 27, 2005, Genencor agreed to a tender offer from Danisco, which already owned more than 40 percent of its stock. A committee of independent directors judged the offer fair to other shareholders. Danisco completed the purchase later in 2005 and Genencor became its enzyme division.

Under Danisco, Genencor pushed into biofuels. In 2008 it formed a joint venture with DuPont called DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol to develop low cost ways of making ethanol from plant waste. The same year Genencor and Goodyear announced work on BioIsoprene, a plant based building block for tire rubber.

The DuPont years

In 2011 DuPont bought Danisco for $6.3 billion. Genencor became the core of DuPont Industrial Biosciences. Palo Alto became one of DuPont's research centers. A DuPont location page lists the DuPont Palo Alto Research and Development Center at 925 Page Mill Road and describes it as one of 14 global DuPont research centers, focused on renewable and biobased products. According to that page:

• The building has about 150,000 square feet, built around a central corridor meant to encourage people to mix.
• Nearly 200 scientists and engineers worked there in biochemistry, molecular biology, protein chemistry and chemical engineering.
• Work included protein engineering, enzyme production systems and pathway engineering for biobased chemicals.
• Application teams covered biomass conversion, fabric and household care and textile processing.

The page credits the center with work on biobased tires, adhesives and elastomers and on enzymes to make cellulosic ethanol from wheat straw and other nonfood plants.

IFF and the site today

In 2021 International Flavors & Fragrances acquired DuPont's nutrition and biosciences business, including the Genencor division. The brand survives. Recent IFF job listings for Palo Alto describe the Genencor Technology and Innovation Center as a biotechnology research lab and pilot plant, with teams working on technologies for health care, food, consumer and industrial markets. The listings give only the city and ZIP code, so we could not confirm in 2026 that the center still uses 925 Page Mill Road, though that is the address DuPont published.

That makes Genencor one of the longest running life science operations in the research park. Syntex closed in 2008 and DNAX left in 2019, but enzyme research has continued on Page Mill Road under four different parent companies.

Timeline

Seeing the area

The Page Mill Road buildings are private and badge controlled. You can see them from the road on the way up toward Interstate 280. For lunch, the cafes near The Hub on Porter Drive and the restaurants of California Avenue are close. Our guide to eating near Stanford Research Park has picks. To place Genencor among the area's other science companies, see the research labs guide and our companies hub.

Frequently asked questions