SynBio Coalition in Review: Q3 2023
October 12, 2023
The SynBio Coalition brings together leaders across the synthetic biology industry to progress the shared goal of building a more robust U.S. biomanufacturing infrastructure. SBC member companies and organizations represent some of the most important applications of this technology and as a collective, continue to drive forward the critical efforts to advance the industry on a national scale.
Please find a few of the recent milestones and achievements from some of the SynBio Coalition members from the past quarter:
In the news: In August, Antheia announced it achieved a major commercial milestone and unveiled its early product pipeline. The successful completion of Antheia’s first 116,000L scale manufacturing run with a commercially-relevant fermentation titer for its debut product marks an important milestone in the company’s mission to transform pharmaceutical manufacturing for key starting materials (KSMs) and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Antheia also announced the appointment of Richard Sherwin as Head of Commercialization. Learn more about Antheia’s commercial progress and read more in a feature story in Forbes.
Industry presence: In September, Christina Smolke, CEO and co-founder of Antheia joined the Forbes Sustainability Leaders Summit in NYC to speak on a panel about the importance of building more sustainable supply chains across industries. Smolke highlighted the opportunity to leverage synthetic biology to completely transform pharmaceutical supply chains.
On the blog: This quarter, Antheia published a variety of new content featuring a number of different executives, taking a deep-dive on Antheia’s road to commercialization, and spotlighting the company culture through the eyes of its very own Chief Dog Officer.
Product launches: In July, Checkerspot collaborated with Hankook Tire to launch upcycled longboards featuring Checkerspot's biobased wheels during Formula E. In September, a collaboration with HO Sports came to fruition with the launch of the Sabre Water Ski, the first water ski to feature Checkerspot's lightweight, biobased foam core.
Expansion: In September, Checkerspot opened the doors to an additional building of its Salt Lake City-based Design Lab, expanding the space to nearly 30,000 ft2. The grand opening of the new Design Lab building, home to Checkerspot's biomaterials formulation teams, was attended by local officials, academics in STEM, government partners, and community members.
In the news: In July, Ginkgo Bioworks announced an expanded partnership with Sumitomo Chemical to develop functional chemicals with synthetic biology. By mass-producing the functional chemicals through microbial fermentation instead of traditional fossil fuel-based chemical synthesis, the companies aim to provide products with a lower carbon footprint that contribute toward a carbon-neutral society.
In the news: In August, Ginkgo Bioworks announced a new partnership with Google Cloud to develop new, state-of-the-art large language models (LLMs) across genomics, protein function, and synthetic biology. The models will help Ginkgo’s customers accelerate innovation and discovery in fields as diverse as drug discovery, agriculture, industrial manufacturing, and biosecurity.
In the news: In September, Ginkgo Bioworks announced a collaboration with Pfizer focused on the discovery of RNA-based drug candidates. In the collaboration, Pfizer will leverage Ginkgo's proprietary RNA technology to advance the discovery and development of novel RNA molecules across priority research areas.
Industry presence: In August, the Good Food Institute (GFI) hosted Synonym on its Science of Alt. Protein series to give more insight into the models powering Scaler, the dynamic techno-economic analysis tool that they released a few months ago. If you’d like to learn more about the tool and better understand the economics required to launch a bioproduct in the mass market, the session is available on YouTube here.
Industry presence part 2: In September, during Climate Week NYC and UNGA78, Synonym’s co-founder and chief business officer, Joshua Lachter, participated in the Sustainability Summit NYC, a collaboration amongst Denmark In New York, the Food & Bio Forum, and Food Nation Denmark. Joshua was joined by several other experts and discussed the challenges and opportunities in biotech investment, particularly focusing on risk mitigation strategies.
Product: Capacitor, the leading database of global fermentation infrastructure that Synonym launched around a year ago, recently surpassed the 3,000 active user mark and now has over 250 facilities listed.
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