Under the huge market capacity and rich application scenarios, synthetic biology has been standing at the high point of the industry in recent years. According to the incomplete statistics of Artery Orange database, in 2022, a total of 54 financings were completed in the field of synthetic biology in China, which is one of the segments with the highest number of financings in the medical segment.
Although the investment in synthetic biology track is still hot, the current investment logic has been transformed from the pursuit of cutting-edge technology to a greater focus on commercialization certainty. When it comes down to the current stage of industry development, industrialization has become the core task of synthetic biology. So what are the core capabilities of synthetic biology companies to walk through the valley of industrialization and become the center of a new round of competition?
Through the research of arterial network, the current synthetic biology enterprises are mainly divided into two sources: emerging innovative enterprises and traditional fermentation enterprise transformation. The former tries to make a brand new category, but the risk of subsequent industrialization and commercialization is higher. The latter is usually in the process of introducing synthetic biology technology to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and passively completes the complete chain from gene editing to application development. Such enterprises are less enthusiastic in financing, and tend to prefer relatively mature categories in product selection.
From the development paths of the two types of companies, we can also clearly see that mass production and product selection are the two major challenges for synthetic biology companies to achieve commercialization.
Zhang Zhiqian, Founder and CEO of Synthetic Biology, said that in the face of the risk of cost control and market connection, it is even more crucial to realize high-efficiency mass production than to realize the "synthesizability" of more substances. From the front-end strain construction to the back-end fermentation production, continuously improving the technology platform for mass production is very meaningful to the future development of the industry, and it is worth focusing on investment.
Focusing again on product selection, synthetic biology is a long-cycle, high-investment process from new product development to final landing, requiring multiple considerations of product cyclicality, market size, consumer demand, and even industry regulation and risk issues. For example, Amyris, one of the three giants of synthetic biology at one time, suffered a sharp drop in shale oil prices precisely because of the biofuel products it developed, which ultimately led to the bankruptcy of its business.
It is worth mentioning that besides mass production and product selection, the position of enterprises in the whole industry is also extremely important. Synthetic biology is linked, convergence, integration, play their own advantages at the same time should focus on the industry, the industry as a whole linkage development in order to create more opportunities and possibilities. Whether it is the "purpose"-oriented engineering design idea or the "application"-oriented product construction, all of them are emphasizing the "docking" of the upstream and downstream.
To sum up, large-scale mass production technology, mature application market and upstream and downstream linkage of the industrial chain will become the key capabilities of synthetic biology across the industrialization development.
Nevertheless, the traditional synthetic biology platform enterprises represented by Ginkgo are still mainly focusing on technology platforms, providing technical services and joint research and development to enterprises in various fields through the universality of technology platforms, and the company as a whole favors the upstream, and the business model is relatively single, and most of them are not involved in the layout of the whole industry chain such as independent products and applications, and amplification and production.
According to the observation of Arterial Network, the platformization defined by State Creative Biology is different. Statechip relies on the construction of technology routes in the early stage to open up a whole set of technology routes from upstream component libraries and strain libraries, to midstream mutation and screening platforms, to downstream amplification processes, which is able to rapidly realize the whole process from substance synthesizable to substance mass production, and improve the yield and efficiency of substance synthesis.
After integrating the R&D capability, scale mass production capability, product application capability and commercialization capability, Strike Bio has the ability to develop multi-pipeline products, which can be connected to the amplified production of its own factories, supply stable production capacity to the outside world and open up a diversified mode of cooperation to realize the integration of R&D, production, marketing and the whole industry chain layout, and to form a complete "big platform" by connecting the upstream and downstream. platform".
On the technology side, the SCT synthetic biology platform is characterized by modularity, engineering, automation and universality, which can provide strong support for cutting-edge breakthroughs in synthetic biology and industrial innovation, and can flexibly respond to the R&D needs of customers in different fields. On the production side, the platform can connect with the R&D side to realize the production of multiple substances and achieve a stable supply of green and low-carbon, and open the pilot amplification base for experts to do technology verification and transformation; on the product side, the platform has realized the commercialization of more than 50 kinds of substances from the layout of multiple pipelines in medicine, food, beauty and safety, and has created a full product life cycle support service from 0 to 1.
Especially on the market side, in terms of platform cooperation, Strike Bio chooses to openly integrate the resources of industry, academia, and research sectors to help unite the strengths of all parties for research, such as the transformation of cutting-edge scientific research results, key breakthroughs in the industry's domestic demand, and so on. Relying on its own advantages of research, production and marketing integration, it provides corresponding full-chain services and solutions to meet the needs of different partners.
"For example, the upstream open platform cooperation, we can provide customized R & D services for traditional fermentation enterprises; downstream for the industrial end of the customer can provide high-quality green raw materials, to ensure the supply of production capacity, but also for university professors or research institutions to provide pilot amplification validation and transformation of the landing services; emerging brands to embrace the green and sustainable fashion, from the upstream R & D to the downstream product landing, From upstream R&D to downstream product landing and promotion, Strike Bio can also provide a full chain of service programs." said Zhang Zhiqian. said Mr. Zhang Zhiqian.
Relying on the platform development and the whole industry chain layout, Strike Bio has created a unique advantage in cost control and efficiency improvement. For example, for many external cooperation projects, the fastest we can do is to achieve cooperation, landing and commercialization in the same year, forming a whole set of platform operation system with high efficiency and speed, which has become one of the core competitiveness of the company.
As the translation of synthetic biology falls into place and competition between companies intensifies, the model of creating a large platform can bring more long-term value to companies and will also be conducive to a more sustainable development of the industry.
According to industry experts, the scale of development can improve efficiency, accelerate innovation, reduce costs; diversified product applications, diversified mode of cooperation, to adapt to the industry peers, experts and scholars, scientific research institutions, traditional enterprises and so on different needs; from the industry as a whole, is conducive to promoting the cooperation between industry, academia and research and the construction of industrial ecosystems.
Synthetic biology has a wide range of application scenarios, showing great potential in the fields of medicine, food, beauty and materials.
Taking the pharmaceutical field as an example, the application of synthetic biotechnology can be broadly categorized into the synthesis of drug intermediates/ APIs (e.g., biosynthesis of Artemisinin, Selegiline, Paclitaxel, etc.), and artificial modification of living organisms for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes (which is still in the research stage).
It has been reported that synthetic biology is able to produce more than 60% functional raw materials used in medical clinics, beauty care and health food. At the same time, the medical and aesthetic and medical fields will naturally have higher requirements for product efficacy, safety, and substance purity, which is where synthetic biology excels.
According to BCCResearch forecast, the market size of synthetic biology in medical field will reach USD 5.022 billion in 2024, with a CAGR of 18.9%.AiRui Consulting's "China Medical Aesthetic Industry Research Report 2022" also shows that the size of China's medical aesthetics market grows to CNY 217.9 billion in 2021, and it is expected that the domestic medical aesthetics market in 2025 will reach 410.8 billion yuan.
It can be said that the market value of synthetic biology in the field of medical aesthetics and healthcare is very certain, and it is a real niche track with high growth and certainty.
Based on the judgment of the market potential and the building of its own capabilities, Strike Bio utilizes a large platform to extend to the medical aesthetic and medical field, opening up a new future of health with synthetic bio-intelligence, and gradually gaining wide attention and recognition in the global perspective.
According to Zhang Zhiqian's introduction: "State Creative Biology has previously made 20 to 30 kinds of beauty personal care raw materials, including beauty peptides as part of the raw materials, so the company's in-depth layout of the medical beauty and medical field, but also has a certain degree of technical capabilities. For example, the company began to synthesize many peptides, and after gradually accumulating technical advantages, it established a set of production lines for peptide synthesis. The production line can also be used to produce raw materials such as drug peptides and pharmaceutical intermediates."
Specifically in terms of products, in the field of medical aesthetics, Status Creation has made good progress in the structure, activity and efficacy of recombinant human type III collagen. In order to avoid homogeneous filling, the company is also trying to make longer chain and more stable collagen, as well as gradually delving into the application of medical device class.
In the pharmaceuticals segment, State Creative Bio is laying out terpenes such as squalene and some Chinese medicine ingredients. By connecting the terpene organics pipeline of the institutions with the international famous drug trading companies, the company assists the institutions in landing the core ingredients pipeline of vaccine adjuvants. Meanwhile, for squalene and traditional Chinese medicine ingredients, the company helps international drug companies as well as well-known pharmaceutical companies to research and develop in order to find better alternatives.
In addition, TIDETRON COMDEL, a multifunctional active peptide prediction and mining AI model developed by the company based on deep learning, has been officially opened to the public on the official website of the industry, with the first phase of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) prediction online. Based on TIDETRON COMDEL, Strike Bio has also carried out relevant R&D cooperation with famous brands in the food field, and has some projects in progress in the field of medical aesthetics and healthcare.
Zhang Zhiqian said, in the field of medical aesthetics, Strike Bio will be committed to synthesizing and mass production of more effective and more active biomaterials, replacing the existing chemical materials or traditional biomaterials. In the medical field, Stripe Bio will prioritize the API and intermediates to enter, and gradually penetrate into the application value or recognition of very high segmentation.
The vision of Syntronics on synthetic biology is "coming true". By connecting the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, the synthetic biology platform will provide a full range of solutions for the fields of "medicine, food, beauty and security", and will continue to expand the global cooperation network, work closely with partners to build a global synthetic biology industry ecosystem, and move towards the sustainable development of the "bio-age". We will continue to expand our global cooperation network and work closely with our partners to build a global synthetic biology industry ecosystem and move towards a sustainable "biological era".
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