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Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA): 주문형 생명 구축

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생명공학의 새로운 시대

Over time, knowledge about medicine and biotechnology has changed in successive important phases. At first, it was mostly about understanding natural biochemical processes. Then, synthetic chemical drugs started to alter these processes. Then, bioengineering allowed for the production by GMO microbes of cheap and safe insulin, growth hormone, etc.

오늘날, 빅데이터, AI, 자동화, 정밀 유전공학, 고급 분석 등 여러 기술이 융합되어 바이오과학의 또 다른 시대를 열고 있습니다:

새롭게 설계된 유기체와 치료법은 자연이 만든 것을 단순히 복제하거나 교정하는 것이 아니라, 완전히 새로운 능력을 처음부터 창조하는 것입니다. 이는 플라스틱 오염, 기후 변화, 지속 가능한 농업, 무오염 산업 생산, 생물안보, 난치성 질환, 재생 의학, 장수 치료 등 현대 세계의 대부분 문제를 해결할 수 있는 급진적인 도구가 될 수 있습니다:

이미 복잡한 의료 연구, 임상 시험, 산업 시설 환경 위에 이 전혀 새로운 기술 스택을 관리하는 일은 업계 리더에게도 어려울 수 있습니다.

이 때문에 “Research-as-a-Service” 혹은 “organisms-on-demand”와 같은 새로운 서비스 형태를 제공하는 전문 기업들이 등장하고 있습니다. 그리고 이 신흥 분야를 이끌고 있는 기업이 바로 Ginkgo Bioworks입니다.

DNA 가격 차트

Ginkgo Bioworks의 기원

The company was founded in 2008 by five MIT scientists, to produce GMO bacteria for industrial applications. The core idea was that most projects using modified microorganisms have to repeat separately the same steps before reaching a usable product.

Instead, a company like Ginkgo could perform these steps once and then license multiple products from this common technological and biological base.

Think of a cell. It’s kind of like a little machine that runs on digital code, very similar to a computer, except in this case the code—instead of zeros and ones, it’s A’s, T’s, C’s, and G’s.

그래서 합성생물학은 세포 안의 DNA 코드를 바꾸어 컴퓨터를 프로그래밍하듯 세포를 프로그래밍하는 것입니다. 우리는 일종의 세포 프로그래머이며, 고객이 원하는 대로 세포가 작동하도록 만드는 것이 우리의 일입니다.

Jason Kelly – Ginkgo Bioworks CEO (DNA )

Ginkgo was the first biotechnology company to join the famed Y Combinator start-up accelerator program in 2014 and was at one point one of the world’s largest privately held biotech companies, valued at $4.2 billion in 2019.

The company went public in 2021 through a SPAC merger and managed to secure the NYSE ticker DNA, previously held by biotech pioneer Genentech (before its acquisition by Roche).

Ginkgo만의 독특한 서비스 & 인프라

Ginkgo Automation

An original selling point for Ginkgo has been that it generated biological data in an automatized and consistent fashion.

이는 바이오테크 분야에 중요한 발전이며, 복제하기 어렵거나 비교가 힘든 연구들이 산업을 괴롭혀 왔고, 과학적 발견을 체계화하려는 시도가 언제나 미흡했습니다.

자동화는 박사 수준 연구자가 수행하던 힘들고 느린 수작업을 대체함으로써 비용 통제에도 필수적입니다.

이 문제를 해결하기 위해, 회사는 로봇 팔, 무선 연결, 모듈형 분석 장치 슬롯을 갖춘 모듈형 자동화 바이오랩 구축 블록인 Reconfigurable Automation Carts (RACs)를 개발했습니다.

이들은 서로 연결되어 과학 실험 및 바이오분석을 위한 일종의 “조립 체인”을 만들 수 있습니다.

This solution is combined with a software offering, creating a flexible solution that can be adapted and modified in just days or hours, compared to more rigid research infrastructures requiring months of costly reconfiguration for new projects.

Ginkgo Datapoint

While Automation generates the biological data, Datapoint processes them into useful insights.

The key element is the quick generation of data that can guide further hypotheses, and the rapid iteration of new experiments to keep moving forward.

이 서비스를 통해 Ginkgo는 완전히 고객에게 귀속되는 데이터를 제공할 수 있으며, 이는 다른 바이오테크 또는 제약 기업과의 파트너십에 경쟁력을 부여합니다.

데이터는 최소 3주 안에 생성될 수 있으며, 각 세포 유형당 수만 건의 in vitro 화학 및 유전적 교란과 다양한 분석 방법을 선택해 결과를 연구할 수 있습니다.

같은 시스템을 이용해 빠르게 새로운 항체를 생성할 수 있으며, 이는 현재 종양학 및 기타 의료 분야에서 핵심 의약품으로 부상하고 있습니다. Ginkgo는 24억 달러 규모의 자동화 습식 실험실 인프라 덕분에 한 번에 최대 2,400개의 서로 다른 항체를 스크리닝할 수 있습니다.

마지막으로, 이 기술은 새로운 mRNA 서열을 매우 빠르게 생성하고 테스트하는 데에도 활용될 수 있습니다.

Overall, these data could also be used to train AI agent specialized in biotech research, either directly by Ginkgo or by its clients if they are ready to pay for an unlimited access to said data. Or for that matter, maybe helping AI to compute in a more energy efficient way with organoids, micro-brain grown in lab and that can connect to silicon chips.

Ginkgo Bioworks 사업 부문

Because the potential for custom bioengineered organisms and synthetic biology is so vast, Ginkgo has potential in many extremely large markets, notably agriculture, biologic pharmaceuticals, biosecurity, government programs, and industrial biotechnology.

농업

As modern farming is under pressure from the need for more sustainable practices, invasive species, degrading soils, and climate change, new crop varieties are in high demand.

The company operates its own greenhouse facility and has access to 387,000+ strains of agronomic plants, as well as 2.7 billion genes in a private metagenomic database that virtually does not overlap with public gene databases.

The focus of this segment is split between crop protection (against pests and diseases), crop nutrition (fertilizers optimization), and plant traits (growth rate, yields, resistance to water or thermal stress, etc.).

Ginkgo’s products help create biocontrol for pests that otherwise need chemical treatments to not destroy the crops, like for example the partnership with Vitales to control critical soybean diseases in Brazil.

“Partnering with Ginkgo allows us to accelerate our timeline for bringing vital new biocontrol solutions to market. Ginkgo’s expertise in fermentation and formulation, with teams working collaboratively under the same roof, will speed up the development of economically viable product concepts.”

Fernando Eduardo Alves de Sousa – Biological Sciences, Vitales

Ginkgo’s client list in agribusinesses includes leading firms like the global leaders Bayer and Syngenta.

The partnership with Bayer is looking to replace nitrogen fertilizers with bacteria; nitrogen fertilizer consumes 5% of the total worldwide natural gas used and is responsible for 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

바이오제약

As one of the largest money makers in the biotech industry, the biopharmaceutical sector is very important for Ginkgo. The company has secured relations with an impressive roster of large pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer (PFE ), Novo Nordisk, Biogen, Moderna, and Boehringer Ingelheim.

“We believe that Ginkgo’s unique combination of cell programming expertise, proprietary tools, and knowledge of biological systems make them an ideal collaboration partner.”

Alphonse Galdes  – Fmr. Head of Pharmaceutical Operations & Technology at Biogen

The partnership and services are organized around 6 different main topics:

  • Optimized manufacturing of biologics & peptides, notably for Novo Nordisk and Selecta Biosciences .
  • Production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) through scaled-up biocatalysis and fermentation.
  • Molecular diagnostic solutions, through proprietary enzyme database and expert enzyme designers.
  • Gene therapy, with a focus on lipid nanoparticles and AAVs (viral vectors) capsules for delivery of the genetic material.
  • Cell therapy & gene editing using CAR-T, CRISPR, and another advanced method for precise gene editing.
  • RNA therapeutics & vaccines optimizing mRNA and circRNA sequences for improved durability and protein expression, notably for Moderna and Pfizer, and leveraging mRNA data generation Ai models.

“Access to Ginkgo’s proprietary platform will help enable Pfizer to search for novel and exciting RNA constructs with improved stability and expression that could lead to more effective treatments.”

Will Somers – Head of Biomedicine Design at Pfizer

Among the key partnerships growing recently, Novo Nordisk has expanded its connection to Ginkgo in 2024. What started in 2022 with a narrow focus on production optimization is now also looking at expanding it wider, as well as adding discovery and development of new protein-based pharmaceuticals.

“This progress is a strong indicator of the potential we have to engineer biological systems that will expand the chemical space of biological medicines.”

Brian Vandahl – SVP, Global Research Technologie at Novo Nordisk”

Other Ginkgo’s various research programs and partnerships that can be mentioned include:

생물안보 & 정부

During the pandemic, Ginkgo provided help in producing tests for the detection of Covid-19, with 15+ million samples tested in 11 key international airports.

It is now helping with monitoring H5N1 (avian flu) through genomic surveillance using anonymized milk samples.

The company performs these tasks primarily through 2 tools: Horizon and Canopy.

Horizon

This is a biological reporting suite of software and database with Localized biointelligence (BIOINT) for geographies of interest. The overall idea is to provide better data to decision-makers in hospitals, governments, airlines, etc.

This is done through early warning systems, forecasting & modeling of infections, identification of high-risk hubs, preparedness assessment, and supply management, and can even be used to train custom AIs.

Canopy

Canopy is a localized pathogen surveillance system using rapid PCR for detection, next-generation sequencing, and AI-powered analysis.

This is made to provide early warning, better evaluation of the real-time situation, and fill gaps in public data.

Together with Horizon, Ginkgo can help better handle potential pandemics, ongoing epidemics, and general bio-threats.

산업 바이오테크

Many chemical and manufacturing industrial systems rely on large supplies of toxic and/or polluting materials and can be very energy-intensive. In theory, most of these could be replaced by the biochemical abilities of microorganisms, plants, or isolated enzymes.

Ginkgo is currently partnering with important companies in the sector producing colorants, flavors, perfumes, etc. like Givaudan, Robertet, or Solvay.

This can replace chemical or metallic catalysts with biocatalysts, replace artificial ingredients with natural ones, or produce cheaply and more reliably functional proteins.

Ginkgo의 비즈니스 모델 불확실성

Despite its remarkable technical achievements, Ginkgo has been struggling from an investment and stock price point of view.

This was in large part due to its unique business model, which many are doubting could bring enough money to justify its very high 2021 valuation, which was further inflated by the general high valuation of the whole biotech sector during the pandemic.

The fact that Ginkgo does not receive royalties for its discovery is a commercial advantage for signing deals but can also severely hinder its ability to profit from them in the long term.

Some elements showing this are probably starting to change. First is the delivery of a major milestone in a project with Merck, leading to a $9M payout in Q4 2024, and the start of stage 2 of the project with further larger payments to be expected.

As this should lead to improvement in Merck’s biomanufacturing process, it is also likely to generate further income for Ginkgo’s down the road. The previously mentioned expansion of collaboration with insulin giant and Ozempic-fame Novo Nordisk will also be important.

In total, the company has as much as $1.7B  in aggregate potential future cash revenue in the downstream milestone pool.

The company is also now making direct sales of its tools to researchers in both public and private labs, creating another flow of income (including future maintenance, update, and consumable sales) that might be more steady than the irregular milestone payment from partners.

Overall, the revenues from biosecurity are shrinking in the post-pandemic era but are being replaced by cell engineering contracts.

구조조정

Another element to improve the company’s financial situation is to reduce overhead costs. In 2024, the company has aggressively reduced its costs unrelated to people and office/lab space, reducing quarterly spending by almost $150M.

It is also consolidating its multiple sites accumulated over expansion and several acquisitions, with only one site left in Europe, and 3 in the US. Consolidation of the activity spread between multiple buildings will also occur soon.

Ginkgo의 미래 비즈니스 모델

To some level, the company is likely to still have to perform some additional transition to its business model to convince investors to come back to the company.

One could be a switch to a more hardware-focused direction, something already initiated by the selling of automated labs to researchers, after having been mostly only operating by these facilities.

Another option could be for Ginkgo to start more contract manufacturing at scale. Its expertise in biosciences, lab hardware design, and optimization of production for giants like Merck gives it a serious credential to succeed in this path.

Lastly, it should also be noted that the company assets, like for example billions of dollars in automated wet labs, are severely discounted at the current market capitalization, standing below $0.5B.

Far from just an IP-heavy company, Ginkgo also has some solid physical assets to back up its activity and would be difficult to replicate by any competitor.

결론

Ginkgo Bioworks is a pioneer in synthetic biology, having made a move in the industry early on, almost 2 decades ago.

From a technical point of view, it has and still is revolutionizing the way biological data are generated, analyzed, and put into useful applications. This has far-reaching ramifications in agriculture, medicine, biotech, and industrial use of bioproducts.

It is also a company that might have been too ambitious for its own good, and for the investors that bought the company’s stock at its peak in 2021. The difficulty in making the business generate enough cash quickly has caused concerns and triggered a durable crisis, reflected by the company’s stock prices crashing.

Nevertheless, Ginkgo Bioworks has become a key partner to many of the largest pharmaceutical companies, with none having an interest in a potential bankruptcy that would likely see it acquired by one of its competitors.

This simple fact, combined with changes to the business model and cost structures, should give the company a new growth trajectory and help it turn into a central keystone of a new more sustainable biology-centered century.

Ginkgo Bioworks 최신 소식

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Jonathan은 유전 분석 및 임상 시험을 수행한 전직 생화학 연구원입니다. 그는 현재 주식 분석가이자 금융 작가이며, 혁신, 시장 주기 및 지정학에 초점을 맞춘 출판물 'The Eurasian Century'을 운영하고 있습니다.