Biomanufacturing: The Hard Road from Lab to Commercial Scale

Originally published in Global Corporate Venturing (GCV)
Read the original GCV article ↗

A scientific result is not yet a manufacturing business

Biomanufacturing offers ways to produce materials and ingredients through biological processes. Its promise attracts attention, but the investment case depends on what happens after a useful result in the laboratory.

CMVC’s January 2024 perspective examined the ambitions behind national biotechnology strategies and the development of synthetic biology companies. The most enduring questions concerned cost, scale and how a company would capture value.

Scaling is a development problem of its own

A process that works in a small experiment must be developed for a production setting. The team needs consistent output, an appropriate separation and purification process, a dependable feedstock and economics suited to the product.

These requirements vary by application. A high-value ingredient and a large-volume commodity face different commercial constraints. A broad forecast for the bioeconomy cannot substitute for understanding a specific production process and customer.

Whole-cell and cell-free approaches

Whole-cell methods use living cells to carry out production. Cell-free methods use biological components outside living cells. Each can offer advantages for particular tasks, alongside constraints involving cost, productivity and process design.

The choice should follow the target product and the development problem. Cell-free tools can support research and testing without implying that they are universally the best route for large-scale manufacturing. Likewise, an established fermentation approach still needs to meet the economics of its application.

A platform or a product?

A discovery platform can generate scientific possibilities. A product business must select an application, develop a production route and reach customers. The relationship between those two activities shapes the company’s capital needs and route to revenue.

In the Chinese companies examined for the original account, many teams combined platform capabilities with product development. For investors, that makes prioritization important: which product can establish a credible business, and how does the platform improve its development?

What we want to understand

We examine the customer need, process performance, manufacturing requirements and cost relative to the alternative. We also ask how the company will demonstrate progress between laboratory development and commercial supply.

Policy ambitions can support attention and investment, but they are not achieved outcomes.

The opportunity is to back teams that can connect biological innovation with an application, a workable process and a business model. That is the harder—and more investable—part of the biomanufacturing story.