Through real-time metabolite monitoring,
Bitome's technology is expected to support accelerated product
development timelines across Ginkgo's portfolio of cell
programs
BOSTON, June 6, 2022
/PRNewswire/ -- Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA), the leading horizontal
platform for cell programming, today announced that it has acquired
certain assets from Bitome, a company pioneering real-time
metabolite monitoring for faster biological product development.
Bitome has developed technology leveraging machine learning to
provide continuous monitoring of cell culture media, illuminating
the performance of cells in real-time and enabling faster rates of
bioprocess optimization.
In the design-build-test-learn process that is central to
synthetic biology, testing the performance of cells is an expensive
and time-consuming bottleneck. Bitome's continuous metabolite
monitoring technology can help address this bottleneck, providing
essential data on cell performance and potentially accelerating the
path to production-ready organisms. Real-time data on the metabolic
state of the cells in a bioreactor helps scientists better
anticipate which cell lines and process conditions to select for
further optimization, which in turn can reduce the number and
duration of bioreactor runs that are necessary for a given
project.
"Ginkgo is constantly looking for opportunities to strengthen
its cell engineering platform, and a central component of cell
engineering is testing and optimizing strains at scale," said
Barry Canton, co-founder and Chief
Technology Officer at Ginkgo Bioworks. "Having evaluated Bitome's
technology over the past few years, we believe their technology
will allow us to accelerate the design and optimization of strains
across a range of customers and industries."
"Bitome was founded to unleash faster biotech innovation, and
one of the core obstacles this industry faces is incomplete strain
performance data," said Herbert
Ryan, co-founder and CEO at Bitome. "Our team is thrilled to
be joining the Ginkgo platform where we can deploy our technology
much more broadly to create the next generation of synthetic
biology."
About Ginkgo Bioworks
Ginkgo is building a platform to enable customers to program
cells as easily as we can program computers. The company's platform
is enabling biotechnology applications across diverse markets, from
food and agriculture to industrial chemicals to pharmaceuticals.
Ginkgo has also actively supported a number of COVID-19 response
efforts, including K-12 pooled testing, vaccine manufacturing
optimization and therapeutics discovery. For more information,
visit www.ginkgobioworks.com.
About Bitome
Bitome, Inc. is a Boston-based
company that is digitizing bioprocessing. Bitome's AI engine
leverages metabolomics to rapidly accelerate process optimization
-- helping biotech companies get their product to market
faster.
Forward-Looking Statements of
Ginkgo Bioworks
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements
within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including
statements regarding the potential success of the acquisition and
Ginkgo's cell programming platform. These forward-looking
statements generally are identified by the words "believe," "can,"
"project," "potential," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate,"
"intend," "strategy," "future," "opportunity," "plan," "may,"
"should," "will," "would," "will be," "will continue," "will likely
result," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are
predictions, projections and other statements about future events
that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a
result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could
cause actual future events to differ materially from the
forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not
limited to: (i) the effect of Ginkgo's business combination with
Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp. ("Soaring Eagle") on Ginkgo's
business relationships, performance, and business generally, (ii)
risks that the business combination disrupts current plans of
Ginkgo and potential difficulties in Ginkgo's employee retention,
(iii) the outcome of any legal proceedings that may be instituted
against Ginkgo related to its business combination with Soaring
Eagle, (iv) volatility in the price of Ginkgo's securities now that
it is a public company due to a variety of factors, including
changes in the competitive and highly regulated industries in which
Ginkgo operates and plans to operate, variations in performance
across competitors, changes in laws and regulations affecting
Ginkgo's business and changes in the combined capital structure,
(v) the ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other
expectations after the completion of the business combination, and
identify and realize additional opportunities, (vi) the risk of
downturns in demand for products using synthetic biology, (vii) the
unpredictability of the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and the
demand for COVID-19 testing and the commercial viability of our
COVID-19 testing business, and (viii) changes to the biosecurity
industry, including due to advancements in technology, emerging
competition and evolution in industry demands, standards and
regulations. The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. You
should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks
and uncertainties described in the "Risk Factors" section of
Ginkgo's quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on May 16, 2022 and other documents filed by Ginkgo
from time to time with the SEC. These filings identify and address
other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual
events and results to differ materially from those contained in the
forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only
as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put
undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and Ginkgo assumes no
obligation and does not intend to update or revise these
forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information,
future events, or otherwise. Ginkgo does not give any assurance
that it will achieve its expectations.
GINKGO BIOWORKS INVESTOR
CONTACT:
investors@ginkgobioworks.com
GINKGO BIOWORKS MEDIA
CONTACT:
press@ginkgobioworks.com
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SOURCE Ginkgo Bioworks