 In 1941 the company's predecessor launched its first enzyme, trypsin, extracted from the pancreas of animals and used to soften leather, and was the first to produce enzymes by fermentation using bacteria in 1950s.In the late 1980s Novozymes presented the world’s first fat-splitting enzyme for detergents manufactured with genetically engineered microorganisms, called "Lipolase".The current Novozymes was founded in 2000 as a spinout from pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk.