From the laboratory to the market: Bloomage Biotech's world's largest pilot transformation platform helps the biomanufacturing 5.0 revolution

Recently, Bloomage Biotech's Pilot Achievement Transformation Center was fully completed in Tianjin. The center covers an area of 30,000 square meters, with 64 pilot production lines, through the advanced concept of "modular" and "drawer" to optimize the pilot process, can undertake the pilot and small-scale commercial production of a variety of bioactive raw material products such as pharmaceutical grade, skin care grade, food grade, etc., can be called the world's largest pilot test achievement transformation platform.

The center is not only committed to promoting the pilot transformation of Bloomage Biotech's internal R&D results, but also opening up to the whole society in a "platform" model to provide pilot transformation services for biomanufacturing. This milestone will inject new vitality into the integration of industry, academia and research in China, become a key force in breaking down the barriers between science and technology and industry, and is expected to promote the vigorous development of new quality productivity represented by synthetic biology, laying a solid foundation for achieving the "double carbon" goal.

After six years of grinding a sword, the double innovation of "platformization × flexibility" leads the industrial transformation and development

Since 2018, Bloomage Biotech has started the construction of the pilot test achievement transformation center, in 2021, the skin care products and food-grade pilot test achievement transformation workshop will be put into operation, and in June 2024, the pharmaceutical-grade pilot test achievement transformation workshop will be completed and put into operation, representing the full completion of the entire pilot test achievement transformation center. After six years of sharpening a sword and billions of capital investment, Bloomage Biotech has built the world's largest and most extensive pilot scale achievement transformation platform with synthetic biology manufacturing as its positioning. The platform covers the whole process from fermentation, purification to refining, aiming to provide efficient and reliable process support and comprehensive solutions for the transformation of technological achievements.

Zhao Yan, Chairman and President of Bloomage Biotech, said that investing in the construction of the world's largest pilot transformation platform is an important strategic deployment of the company, which is the core key to realizing industrial empowerment and opening up industry, education and research, and will further enhance the key link value of Bloomage Biotech in the intermediate link of supply chain control.

The pilot test achievement transformation platform can actively provide a series of services such as pilot maturation, test verification, inspection and testing for universities, scientific research institutes, various enterprises, investment institutions and public basic service industries through the implementation of various cooperation modes such as achievement transfer, cooperative development and entrusted pilot test (production), so as to help promote the industrial transformation and market transformation of scientific research achievements. Zhao Yan pointed out, "Bloomage Biotech is committed to building a platform for the transformation of pilot test achievements and becoming a demonstration platform base for the integration of 'production, education and research'. ”

It is worth noting that Bloomage Biotech's pilot transformation platform has two innovative features: "platform" and "flexible".

The "platform" feature is reflected in the in-depth support of the whole synthetic biology industry chain from "strain culture to end products", which can provide pilot solutions for many substances, thereby accelerating the commercialization process of scientific research results; "Flexibility" is embodied in the modular design and drawer-type flexible assembly, which is suitable for process switching of different properties and processes, and realizes efficient conversion and production between multiple products, multiple processes, multiple forms and multiple units. The design greatly improves the equipment utilization rate and production efficiency, and also improves the strain capacity of production, fully meeting the personalized and diversified needs of R&D.

In addition, Bloomage Biotech's pilot test platform not only has the characteristics of service customization, intelligence, standardization, etc., but also has built the world's first "Biomanufacturing Science and Technology Museum" with public welfare science popularization attributes, which aims to actively promote the popularization and promotion of synthetic biotechnology, so that more people can have an in-depth understanding of and benefit from this cutting-edge technology.

Promote industry-wide cooperation and comprehensively set up a platform for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements

In the mainland, the low conversion rate of scientific and technological achievements is a problem that needs to be solved urgently. According to the data, the conversion rate of scientific and technological achievements in developed countries in Europe and the United States is as high as more than 75%, of which about 50% are industrialized, while the conversion rate of scientific and technological achievements in mainland China is only about 10%.

We must realize that the true value of scientific and technological achievements lies in their ability to be successfully transformed into social productive forces. From the conception of scientific research results to their final industrialization, this process needs to go through three key stages: theoretical research, intermediate test (pilot test) and industrialization. Universities and research institutes play a central role in the first two phases, where they are responsible for the discovery of substances from 0 to 1, or the results of experiments from milligrams to grams or kilograms. Then, with its experience and strength in industrial transformation, the company undertakes these scientific research achievements, carries out process amplification and application development from kilogram to tonnage, and finally completes the manufacturing and market transformation from tonnage to larger-scale. In the whole process, the pilot phase is particularly crucial. Only after the strict screening and verification of the pilot test can the scientific research results smoothly transition to the stage of industrial production. Therefore, whether the scientific research results can be successfully industrialized mainly depends on the success or failure of the pilot test.

As a cutting-edge technology in biomanufacturing, synthetic biotechnology has huge market potential and strategic significance, and it is also a green technology that is in line with the development of new quality productivity. However, for most scientific research institutions, they do not have enough capital and ability to complete the pilot test of synthetic biology scientific research results. In the process of transformation from scientific research achievements to industrial applications, the high cost and complex process of the pilot process have become the bottleneck restricting the development, and it is even called the "valley of death" in the process of synthetic biology industrialization.

For example, collagen, ergothioneine and other bioactive substances obtained through synthetic biotechnology mainly include three modules of "fermentation, purification and refining", involving more than 10 refinement links and processes, and the equipment composition and standards of each module in the pilot link are different for each substance. In particular, synthetic biotechnology is widely used in medicine and other fields, and the requirements for the pilot test link are extremely high, the process is more complex, and the input cost is large, which greatly reduces the probability of success of the pilot test.

According to industry insiders, although theoretically more than 60% of the world's important chemicals, fuels, natural products and raw materials can be obtained through biosynthesis, less than 6% of the actual biosynthetic manufacturing is realized. The huge digital divide of "6% and 60%" is the severe challenge faced by synthetic biotechnology between scientific research achievements and industrial transformation, and enterprises with strong industrial transformation capabilities are urgently needed to lead the breakthrough.

The full completion of Bloomage Biotech's world's largest pilot transformation platform aims to fill the gap of "industrial transformation" in the development of synthetic biotechnology and provide a feasible solution to the bottleneck that has long plagued the development of synthetic biology industry. As one of the few synthetic biology industry chain companies in China that integrates the three forces of "R&D and innovation, pilot test, industrial transformation and market transformation", Bloomage Biotech has carried out a total of 132 R&D projects of raw materials and synthetic biology in 2023 with a strong pilot test achievement transformation platform, of which ultra-pure ergothioneine, micro-truth, recombinant type III humanized collagen, lipopeptides and other raw material products have been listed, and salidroside, carnosine, human milk oligosaccharides and other substances have completed the "pilot test".

For example, in the era of "biomanufacturing 1.0" for natural fermentation of natural flora for winemaking, for example, in the era of "single strain directional fermentation" of monosodium glutamate monosodium glutamate, in the era of "biomanufacturing 3.0" in mutagenesis breeding technology, and in the era of "biomanufacturing 4.0" in the application of genetic engineering technology, the era of "biomanufacturing 5.0" is empowered by the application of synthetic biology technology combined with artificial intelligence, that is, BT (biotechnology) + IT (Information). Technology) has accelerated intelligent manufacturing.

Relying on its world's largest pilot transformation platform, Bloomage Biotech plans to achieve comprehensive technology sharing and industry-wide cooperation, which can not only help scientific research institutions verify technical feasibility and accurately calculate costs, but also provide professional optimization suggestions for enterprises, jointly promote industrial cooperation and win-win results, and build an efficient and collaborative industrialization ecological closed loop, which will effectively promote biomanufacturing into the 5.0" era. This will be a revolutionary surpass of traditional manufacturing methods by new technologies and new industries, and is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 50%.

In the global arena of biomanufacturing, synthetic biotechnology has become a key commanding height. The full completion of Bloomage Biotech's world's largest pilot transformation platform will undoubtedly raise the pilot and industrial transformation capabilities of mainland synthetic biology manufacturing to a new height, and strengthen the core competitive advantage of mainland China in the global synthetic biology field. As an important milestone in the field of biomanufacturing in mainland China, the platform will inject a steady stream of vitality into the vigorous development of emerging productivity and provide strong support for the realization of the "dual carbon" goal.