By TA News Bureau

In 1995 Daniel R Swiger founded Yulex Corporation, a venture-backed company to commercialise guayule, an alternative to Hevea rubber crop. He did not stop there. His foresight to develop other environmentally-friendly and sustainable rubber took him to seize the challenge to commercialise Taraxacum koksaghyz or Russian dandelion as a source of good, high molecular weight rubber. He founded US biotechnology company Kultevat Inc to produce rubber from dandelion in North America and then expand that model in other parts of the world. He thinks that the near-total dependence on natural rubber produced is Asia is not desirable as leaf blight could wipe out plantations that produce this strategic material. It is indeed imperative to require a domestic source of natural rubber on which Kultevat Inc is investing its resources for processes and technology. (read more)