April 14, 2022

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

Boston-based biotech giant Ginkgo Bioworks and Elanco, which acquired Bayer’s Animal Health business for $7.6 billion in August 2019, have partnered to launch BiomEdit, a microbiome innovation company with the goal of discovering, developing, and launching new probiotics, bioactive molecules, engineered microbial medicines, and microbial monitoring services for animal health. 

Each human, animal, environment, and even soil have their own unique microbiome, or interconnected community of microorganisms that, in humans and animals, control homeostasis, support the immune system, metabolism, digesting, organ health, and other critical functions.

Microbiome science has been a rapidly growing field of study resulting in breakthroughs in animal health. BiomeEdit intends to leverage these advancements to discover, develop, and introduce differentiated products that address some of the most pressing challenges in animal health including medicated feed ingredients, nutritional health and therapeutics for livestock and pet species, as well as biosecurity technology for animal disease monitoring.

“Livestock producers and veterinarians are calling for new products that address antibiotic resistance and improve livestock sustainability,” said Aaron Schacht, CEO, BiomeEdit and former executive vice president of innovation, regulatory, and business development, Elanco.

“Coupling the platform, pipeline and deep expertise of the former Elanco microbiome team with Ginkgo’s unique screening and strain engineering capabilities will accelerate and amplify our ability to advance novel animal microbiome inspired products for animal health.”

In October 2021, Schacht transitioned to lead the strategic carve-out of Elanco’s microbiome R&D platform with the intention of creating an independent biopharmaceutical company to concentrate and focus more resources on its high value, late-stage Pet Health pipeline.

As a result of this separation, BiomEdit was created and was developed with the help of Ferment Co. – a company creation studio that helps date and launch new companies that use cell programming to support human health, environmental health, and well-being across a variety of end markets. 

However, every launch needs a good financial foundation, and BiomEdit is launching with a targeted Series A funding raise of $40 million with participation from Viking Global Investors and Anterra Capital. In exchange for their contribution of assets and intellectual property, Elanco and Ginkgo Bioworks will retain approximately 40 percent combined proportional ownership of the new company.

“Elanco is excited to continue its participation in the microbiome by partnering with Ginkgo, Viking Global Investors and Anterra Capital to create the next-generation animal health innovation player,” said Jeff Simmons, president and CEO, Elanco Animal Health. “We wish Aaron and his team the best as they build out this novel innovation platform to address unmet needs in animal health, such as alternatives to antibiotics.”

Also coming to the table is Ginkgo Bioworks, a leader in cell technologies that has developed a method of creating custom microbes using robots that was more efficient and less costly compared to the same process being conducted by human scientists, enabling the company “to grow products instead of manufacturing them”.

Through this technology (“Foundry”) and the knowledge and re-usable biological assets (“Codebase”), Ginkgo has built a scalable engineering and data platform by integrating a spectrum of life sciences tools into their Foundry to amass a large, flexible, and diverse biological Codebase to facilitate innovation.

BiomEdit joins Ginkgo’s other platform ventures, such as Joyn Bio, Motif FoodWorks, Allonnia, Acraea, Verb Biotics, and Ayana Bio, and plans to leverage Ginkgo’s state-of-the-art cell programming platform to improve the design and development of probiotics, bioactives, engineered microbial medicines, and microbial monitoring services.

“We are always on the lookout for opportunities to accelerate our partners’ abilities to address massive challenges, such as antibiotic resistance in livestock,” said Jason Kelly, CEO, Ginkgo. “Together, we see Ginkgo and BiomEdit addressing significant opportunities in the animal health industry with new breakthroughs based on microbiome science. We deeply depend on the health of animals in our ecosystem and supply chains; the potential applications for our cell programming platform in this area are far reaching.”

~ Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Unconventional Ag. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.

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