Bio-manufacturing

→ Proving that technologies can be deployed securely remains a major concern for the field.

→ Risks include “DIY biologists” or hackers using cheaply available custom DNA to manufacture pathogenic strains, as well as the unintentional release of bioengineered organisms outside their intended environment.

→ While the cost of DNA synthesis has dropped dramatically over the past decade, the most widely used process of chemical synthesis remains too time-consuming and expensive for large fragments of DNA.

→ Startups are now developing an alternative approach — called enzymatic DNA synthesis — that uses enzymes to stitch various smaller sequences into a larger one in the hope of enabling researchers to go after bigger targets, like assembling entire genes or synthetic genomes.

→ The majority of biomanufacturing relies on fermentation whereby enzymes turn raw materials into desired outputs.

→ Running this process in batches is something that has remained unchanged for the past 70 years. Due to advantages in cost and efficiency, some in the field are holding out for so-called continuous manufacturing to take over instead — the process of running fermentation without interruption.

→ The sector is seeing the emergence of platform-based business models driven by companies with growing biological datasets.

→ Coupled with advances in machine learning, these companies enable faster discoveries for the entire ecosystem. They are also increasingly making their platforms available to others, allowing them to build on top of it other products and services.