 In 1926, French microbiologist Maurice Lemoigne chemically identified the polymer after extracting it from "Bacillus megaterium".It was not until the early 1960s that the groundwork for scaled production was laid.Several patents for the production and isolation of PHB, the simplest PHA, were administered to W.R. Grace & Co. (USA), but as a result of low yields, tainted product and high extraction costs, the operation was dissolved.