Pictor Biotech, which was created last fall by former Novozymes exec Peter Rosholm to acquire the assets of bankrupt biomanufacturing startups Solar Biotech, has made two new acquisitions.
The firms—France-based biotech equipment maker GPC Bio and Hungary-based strain engineering company Eleszto Genetika (EG)—will create “a vertically integrated synthetic biology and biomanufacturing powerhouse,” claims Rosholm.
Virginia-based Solar Biotech has expertise in microbial, animal, and plant cell precision fermentation and downstream processing across various scales, while Eleszto Genetika has developed hundreds of microbial strains for the production of biopharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and cosmeceuticals. GPC Bio specializes in design, automation, software control, and engineering and has delivered biomanufacturing facilities for firms including Cargill and Merck.
By bringing together 100+ engineers, scientists, and biotech execs the combined entity will be able to support clients at every stage from strain and bioprocess development to plant engineering, automation, construction, and large-scale deployment, said Alex Berlin, CEO of Pictor Biotech (doing business as Solar Biotech).
“The challenges of microbial strain engineering—often hindered by restrictive IP and the technical hurdles of scaling bioprocesses—have long impeded the faster development of synthetic biology products. By uniting these companies, we can address these challenges head-on.”
‘Clients now have line of sight from early stage projects to large scale manufacturing’
The leaders of the three companies will continue to serve in their respective roles, while Rosholm will “serve the organization from an owner and investor capacity,” he explained.
“By combining the three firms under one umbrella, we are uniquely positioning our teams to thrive in this rapidly growing sector. We have a strong, client-focused and diverse organization with very experienced management, and this commitment adds significant funding to the existing companies’ infrastructure.”
He added: “The clients now have line of sight from early stage projects to large scale manufacturing with one collaboration partner. Most clients wants to know that they can get commercial scale manufacturing when they start a project.”
Asked about funding, he said: ” We will increase manning and competencies across the board as well as invest massively in more hardware and steel to increase versatility and capacity of manufacturing. Capacity is poised to increase 10-20X.”
While many startups are struggling to attract funding right now, “We are constantly getting new inquiries for projects, also from new clients,” claimed Rosholm. “There is a huge unmet demand.”
‘Strain development has been a bottleneck in this industry’
Asked what combining the companies would mean for clients in practice, Berlin told AgFunderNews: “We will be synergizing and broadening the business offerings. For instance, customers working on strain development with EG can now gain access to bioprocess development and engineering services under one roof. For way too long strain development has been a bottleneck in this industry with all kind of strings attached. Now with this new offering we can make this critical enabling tool available to the wider biomanufacturing community.”
He added: “Tech transfer from bioprocess developers to engineering teams has been the root cause of many technological failures in the past. By vertically integrating bioprocess development and engineering under one team we minimize or completely eliminate the probability of technological failures. I have witnessed way too many times in my 30+ years of biotech career plant designs that ignored and underplayed the importance of bioprocess particularities.”
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