Ginkgo Bioworks has acquired synthetic biology company Patch Biosciences, pharmaceutical company Reverie Labs, and CRISPR-based diagnostic test developer Proof Diagnostics, and launched the Ginkgo Technology Network
Ginkgo Bioworks acquired Patch Biosciences, Reverie Labs, and Proof Diagnostics. (Credit: Ginkgo Bioworks)
Ginkgo Bioworks has acquired three molecular medicine startups and unveiled a new technology network that brings together 25 diverse partners across different capabilities.
The US biotech company acquired Patch Biosciences, Reverie Labs and Proof Diagnostics.
Patch Biosciences is a synthetic biology and machine learning company, backed by Andreessen Horowitz Bio + Health, Casdin Capital, and S32.
The company developed an AI platform for sequence design that enables effective, specific, and durable genetic medicines.
Ginkgo said that the acquisition will strengthen its gene therapy services, cell therapy services, and RNA therapeutics services.
Patch Biosciences CEO and co-founder JB Miche said: “The shared vision and unique expertise of both teams can unlock new frontiers in programmable medicines, which we see as the future of medicine.
“We are excited to contribute our AI/ML capabilities to the impressive Ginkgo platform and look forward to engineering better genetic medicines for Ginkgo’s customers in RNA therapeutics, gene therapy, and beyond.”
Ginkgo has acquired key assets of Reverie Labs, a US-based pharmaceutical company that uses its advanced computational chemistry, and AI/ML tools to advance drug discovery.
The acquisition included Reverie’s infrastructure and software for training large-scale AI foundation models, and four of the Reverie AI team members will join Ginkgo.
Ginkgo said that the acquisition will support its AI/ML-driven discovery services offering and will advance its efforts to build next-generation biological foundation models.
Reverie Labs CEO and co-founder Jonah Kallenbach said: “Our team at Reverie has made great strides using machine learning modelling to improve human wellbeing, and I am eager to marry our technology with Ginkgo’s repository of data, enabling Ginkgo to build some of the world’s best AI models to engineer biology and chemistry.
“Ginkgo is a perfect home for the technology that Ankit, the Reverie team, and I have built over the last six years, and I am very excited to see the impact it will have in the short and long term.”
The US biotech company also acquired Proof Diagnostics, a health technology and diagnostics company developing a CRISPR-based point-of-care testing platform for Covid-19.
The diagnostics company uncovered genome engineering tools for therapeutic and diagnostics applications and developed a smart, portable system for the detection of infectious diseases.
It was founded by scientists from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, to develop a low-cost, rapid, and sensitive diagnostic system using CRISPR-based and other technologies.
The acquisition is focused on Proof’s libraries of OMEGA (obligate mobile element guided activity) RNA programmable, non-Cas enzymes and associated intellectual property.
Proof Diagnostics CEO and co-founder Sid Shenai said: “We are excited for Ginkgo to integrate Proof’s OMEGA nuclease and related technologies into its genetic medicines programs.
“These enzymes are more compact and diverse than other classes of programmable nucleases – including CRISPR Cas – and are a powerful addition to the gene editing toolkit for therapeutics.
“The entire Proof team has admired Ginkgo’s progress for many years and is confident that the team at Ginkgo is uniquely well-suited to advance the full scope of Proof’s technologies to serve customers and patients worldwide.”
Ginkgo has created the Ginkgo Technology Network, a new ecosystem of partners committed to collaborating with Ginkgo to provide new, integrated capabilities to support R&D programs.
The company aims to integrate the capabilities of its network partners to provide customers with more effective solutions to drive successful R&D outcomes across biological end markets.
Ginkgo has added technology network partners to the network, including 310.ai, Advanced Medicine Partners, Avecris, BioMap, BioSymetrics, bit.bio, Catena Biosciences, Cube Biotech.
The Network also includes Ceres Nanosciences, FabricNano, Leveragen, Mediphage, Menten.ai, Phase Genomics, Resilience, Synplogen, and Turbine AI, among others.
Ginkgo Bioworks SVP, AI head and corporate development head Anna Marie Wagner said: “Perhaps one of the most unique capabilities that Ginkgo has developed over the years is the ability to integrate many diverse computational and experimental technologies to deliver on complex customer needs at the bleeding edge of innovation across many product classes.
“There are no silver bullets yet in biological design and making progress will require collaboration. I believe strongly in connecting AI with physical experimentation and so I am excited about the breadth of partners we are bringing on across these areas.
“It’s clear that even the best AI models benefit tremendously from access to relevant labelled data and it’s equally clear that experimental designs are dramatically improved with input from AI.”