Amyris has built its reputation as a biotech innovator since its founding 20 years ago by looking to develop a treatment for malaria. Today, the American firm is best known for its stable of celebrity beauty and wellness brands that it is auctioning off at a discount following its filing for Chapter 11.The company is positioning its voluntary bankruptcy as a move towards its operational and financial restructuring to advance its ongoing strategic transformation for long-term success.Han Kieftenbeld, interim CEO and chief financial officer of Amyris, said, “At the end of this restructuring process, we believe that Amyris will emerge as a financially stronger company with a more focused business model and well-defined path to profitability. “In turn, we will be poised to grow sustainably alongside our valued partners and make an even greater impact on our world through clean chemistry.”But Amyris’ decision to clean up its books to match its venture for clean chemistry has left the fate of many brands undecided. Unpacking the collateral Ahead of its Chapter 11 filing, the company discontinued four brands, including Terasana, EcoFabulous, Olika and Costa Beauty.Then, not long after declaring bankruptcy, Amyris was quick to start selling off its stable of brands, primarily its celebrity-founded beauty, skincare and wellness lines.Some of the most high-profile sales included: reality star Jonathan Van Ness’ haircare line JVN, which sold for US$1.25 million; supermodel Rosie Huntington Whiteley’s makeup line, which sold for US$2.25 million; actor Naomi Watts’ menopause line, which sold for US$500,000; and actor Tia Mowry’s hair care line 4U by Tia, which sold for US$600,000. The auction block of star-studded brands raised questions about just how lucrative brands helmed by celebrities really are. But Amyris insisted in a release that the sold-off brands would “continue to leverage Amyris’ cutting-edge science and technology while under new ownership”.However, beauty manufacturer New Laboratories CEO Rohan Widdison told Inside Retail, “A founder’s excitement doesn’t always lead to consumer engagement – all the money in the world won’t address the conceptual faults.”“Reliance on online marketing to drive gross sales has a non-win outcome, given the high cost ratio of clicks to product value that, pre-Covid, made sense but now isn’t as viable,” Widdison added.Amyris sold off its Sephora-favoured brand Biossance, centred around its invention of squalane, for US$20 million in a deal that included US$23 million in stock and US$6 million of receivables.THG Beauty, formerly known as The Hut Group, was quick to snap up Biossance at Amyris’ bankruptcy auction. “Biossance should be immediately breakeven in THG,” THG founder and CEO Matthew Moulding said on LinkedIn.“Usually, there’d be a queue of buyers for a brand like Biossance – a large, premium, clean chemistry brand, with sustainability at its core. Over 50 per cent of sales are generated from Biossance’s own website, and it has a major US store agreement with Sephora. But buyer interest was minimal,” he added.In its bankruptcy filing, Amyris listed between US$500 million and US$1 billion in assets, and between US$1 billion and US$10 billion in liabilities, so selling off its consumer products brands was essential in restructuring the business.Amyris is not the only beauty manufacturer that is facing challenges; rising costs and raw material shortages are causing industry wide issues.“However, all these issues can be addressed with intelligent and skilled planning, along with formulating and production processes that can pivot quickly to address the immediate issues,” Widdison said.Lab to market Amyris wants to return its focus to innovating clean ingredients to sell to other companies  with its patented lab-to-market platform.When the company first filed for bankruptcy Kieftenbeld hinted at this and said, “We believe the step forward our company has taken today puts us on the best path to address our financial challenges and achieve a comprehensive solution – rooted in Amyris’ ground-breaking science, formulation capabilities and technology.”Its founding story only reiterates this message, as the company started in 2003 with a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation totalling US$43 million, to develop a molecule to treat malaria.This research led to the company pioneering the ability to convert basic plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules – creating and commercialising 13 sustainable ingredients that are used by more than 3,000 global brands.Before 2020 and the Covid-led beauty and wellness boom, Amyris was focused on developing clean ingredients, which was reflected in its revenue stream – 80 per cent of its business was supplying ingredients to other companies.Fast forward to last year, when the biotech company was filing for bankruptcy, over two-thirds of its business was made up of consumer brands, many backed by celebrities.Despite spending years developing and building its consumer arm, including acquiring several celebrity beauty brands, Amyris’ strategy to pivot from a manufacturer to brand builder has failed.“In general, it’s an interesting strategy that has become quite common – the manufacturer  wanting a piece of the action in the belief that they can do it better,” Widdison said. “But running a brand is a different set of skills, commitment and funding that not all manufacturers have, no different to a brand taking over manufacturing and then realising the reality of what that means in terms of capital expenditure and skills.”Now it’s certain that Amyris is no longer interested in marrying brands with biotech in-house, with the company offloading its consumer arm.