Ginkgo Bioworks and Amyris partner to accelerate commercialization of bio-based products

Ginkgo Bioworks, the organism company, and Amyris, Inc., the industrial bioscience company recently announced a new partnership, which will enable the companies to jointly develop products more efficiently and cost effectively, accelerating time to market. This breakthrough biotech partnership creates clear leadership with a combined offering that has successfully introduced more bio-based products than any other company known in the field. The combined R&D capabilities of Ginkgo and Amyris put both partners at a significant advantage in the industry by leveraging the joint end-to-end technology platform. This partnership is expected to deliver more new cultured ingredients into the global market in the next three years than the total industry has achieved in the last 10 years.

“Ginkgo and Amyris working together sets the gold standard for the industrial biotechnology industry,” said Jason Kelly, CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks. “Each company is seeing more customer demand for cultured ingredient partnerships than could be handled individually. By sharing our assets, expertise and experience we can offer more customers access to the industry-leading technology platform.”

As part of the deal, Ginkgo Bioworks will broaden the capacity of Amyris’s strain engineering by providing access to its world-class foundry; Amyris will provide Ginkgo Bioworks scale up expertise and access to the world’s only commercial scale multi-product fermentation facility that has manufactured more cultured ingredients than any other known entity. Together, the two companies will have more than 70 products under contract for delivery to the world’s leading brands across industrial, health and personal care markets. Over the next three years, the two companies expect to move at least 20 additional products through to manufacturing and delivery to customers.

Ginkgo is currently building Bioworks2, a next-generation automated foundry where Ginkgo’s organism engineers can develop new designs at massive scale. The 25,000 square-foot automated facility is used to build and test prototypes of engineered microbes. It is the company’s second, representing a technology leap from Bioworks1, which opened in early 2015.

Amyris has demonstrated clear leadership in the industry of scaling engineered organisms and delivering breakthrough products to its customers. The company’s fermentation facility in Brazil is highly advantaged for the manufacturing of fermentation products.

“Amyris has successfully commercialized five products from highly engineered organisms, disrupting markets from skin care and fragrances to industrial lubricants, tires and jet fuel,” said John Melo, CEO of Amyris. “For industrial biotechnology to deliver on the promise of providing high-performance, sustainable solutions for a growing world, we need a faster and more predictable approach to deliver products to customers. In partnership, the two companies have the leading product and customer portfolio and will accelerate the time to market for products from both companies. The anticipated growth of new products in the coming years will prove that industrial biotechnology’s time has arrived.”

As part of the partnership, the two companies will share in the value of new collaborations and products brought to market. This partnership is expected to generate over $300 million in incremental value for both companies over the next 5 years.