Edition #12 - An octopus to help you in the lab, everything but the oink, and some cool new biomaterials

Hi, I’m James ??

I'm a strategic advisor and fractional CSO/CTO with over 20 years of experience in biotech and executive leadership, I've built high-performing teams and led groundbreaking research in stem cell metabolism, regenerative medicine, and cultured meat. My mission is to collaborate with visionary biotech founders, from pre-seed to Series B+, to accelerate the journey of world-changing products to market.

Every week I share news and stories about the latest innovations across the biomanufacturing value-chain. In each newsletter I share:

• A featured interview with an early stage startup using biology to tackle a global challenge
• A story focussed on a key industry highlight or challenge
• Links to some other great content I’ve been reading
• New job opportunities within biomanufacturing

?? If you find my content interesting or want to learn more about my services then check out my website (see here) which contains additional stories and (free!) resources for biomanufacturing companies.

I am always on the lookout for new and exciting companies, so please reach out for a chat!

???Featured Interview: How an Octopus can Accelerate your Bioprocess

For biomanufacturing to have the global impact we’re all hoping for, many things will need to change. Biomanufactured products like food and textiles, while starting in the luxury space, must eventually come down in price to become widely accessible. This will require changes to the underlying technologies. One critical piece of infrastructure is the bioreactor—where cells or organisms are grown at a massive scale ??.

Typically, startups and new companies use the reliable stirred tank bioreactor (STR). The STR has been the workhorse of biopharma since the early 1900s. However, it was designed to maximize protein production, not biomass. Plus, it supports products with extremely high profit margins (think antibodies, vaccines ??).

But for biomanufacturing to make an impact on commodity products, the bioreactor needs to evolve. This week, I spoke with Cristofer Rybner , co-founder and self-declared "operations" guy at Reocto , a startup on a mission to revolutionize R&D-scale bioprocessing ??.

Like many startups, Reocto was born out of a hackathon. In 2021, Cristofer met Filips at a Baltic deep-tech hackathon. The challenge: “What will bioreactors of the future look like, and how will they operate?”

Cristofer and Filips came up with a modular solution, identifying a unique gap at the bench scale. Their design won the hackathon, and several industry judges even asked them to "please make this" ??. The enthusiasm stuck with them, and shortly after, they connected with Toni, a bioprocessing expert, to level up their designs ??.

Despite living across three countries (Cristofer in Estonia, Filips in Latvia, and Toni in Slovenia), the team extended their initial design and developed an MVP. One of the earliest prototype bioreactors looked like an octopus, which inspired the name Reocto ??.

One of the most impressive things about Reocto is that they’ve entirely bootstrapped the company ??. Avoiding the need for external fundraising has allowed them to work at their own pace and focus on building a product that truly meets their customers' needs. While the pressure of VC funding can drive results, it can also create unrealistic expectations ??♂???. As Cristofer put it:

“It’s our time and our money, so we work at a pace that ensures we deliver a product our consumers love.”

And it’s clearly working for the team. Despite being spread across multiple countries, they’ve built a fully functional 50ml bench-top bioreactor that undercuts similar products by a significant margin. Key to their success is absolute role clarity: Cristofer handles operations, Fillips leads sales and management, and Toni is the product and bioprocess specialist.

When I asked about the design process, Cristofer lit up ?. There's a real sense of pride here, which is awesome to see in a founder. A key part of their design strategy was simplicity—they focused on removing complexity to keep costs low while maintaining core functionality.

A unique feature of the Reocto is its design: many probes and sensors are inserted from beneath, like octopus tentacles ??. While each unit contains just one reactor, multiple units can be daisy-chained together and operated via the same software.

Given that Reocto bootstrapped their MVP, I was curious about the challenges they faced along the way. Cristofer highlighted prioritization as one of the biggest hurdles.

"There are so many things we could do. Figuring out what we should do has been hard."

Early-stage startups face infinite possibilities—prioritizing the right ones can make or break you. It's a delicate balance between blue-sky thinking and staying commercially driven ??.

Another challenge is familiar to anyone in sales:

"Everyone is happy to chat about collaboration and partnerships until we mention money ??."

On the flip side, when I asked Cristofer about the high points, his face lit up when he mentioned storytelling:

“Taking people on the Reocto journey and turning them into believers is one of the most rewarding parts of being a founder.”

Cristofer’s (and his team’s) ability to tell a compelling story has paid off, with multiple people offering their time and expertise to help accelerate Reocto’s journey ???. Great storytelling is often an underrated skill for founders, but it’s crucial for gaining buy-in from investors, customers, and early hires.

"We’ve benefited greatly from the multiplier effect of a supportive community of experts."

So, what’s next for Reocto? In the future, they plan to incorporate more automation into their hardware and add AI/ML solutions to their software to increase the predictive power of their bioreactors ??.

As the biomanufacturing industry grows, I’m excited to see the innovations that will emerge in the B2B space. Optimizing the “picks and shovels” will be essential for producing large amounts of biomass at a low cost, and changing the bioreactor design is a critical step in achieving that goal ?????.

As I do at the end of every interview, I asked Cristofer if he had an 'ask' for the community. Reocto are looking for collaborators and beta-testers for their products, ideally anyone working on developing their bioprocess from bench top to early pilot scale.

?? Story highlight:??? Waste Valorisation and "everything but the oink" ??

Since it first hit the market in December 2020, cultured meat has been at the center of economic debates. Many critics argue it will never reach commodity pricing and will be confined to the realm of novelty foods or upscale dining experiences. ????

I’ve discussed before how advances in biomanufacturing could tackle these challenges and drive down biomass production costs. One key hurdle is that most current bioprocessing relies on stirred-tank bioreactors—technology originally designed and optimized for low-yield, high-value pharmaceutical production. ???? This setup is fundamentally unsuited to scaling biomanufacturing for commodity products, which demand high yields at low cost. ????

Beyond biotech innovations and hybrid product development, there’s another compelling path to profitability for cultured meat: waste stream valorization. ?? In traditional animal agriculture, every part of the animal finds a use—hence the saying, “everything but the oink.” (And trust me, after reading countless renditions of ‘Old MacDonald’ to my kids, I know even that oink has a purpose!) ????

For cultured meat, while the biomass becomes the primary food product, the spent media holds untapped potential. It’s rich in:

1?? Secreted proteins (with CHO cell cultures alone secreting over 500 proteins, including collagen) ??

2?? Secondary metabolites (a varied array including lactate and ammonia) ??

3?? Extracellular vesicles (exosomes loaded with proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids) ??

4?? Unused starting ingredients (like amino acids, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals) ????

Each of these components could drive significant additional revenue—if we can overcome the technical challenges of isolation and purification. ??

Waste stream valorization has already enhanced industries from brewing (think: Marmite from yeast) ???? to olive oil and winemaking (polyphenols) ????, and even cheese production (whey protein) ??. For biomanufacturing, finding value in ‘waste’ could be a game changer. ?

?? Things I’m reading this week

1?? https://futurevvorld-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/futurevvorld.com/design/next-gen-material-innovation-news-sustainable-circular-fashion/amp/

In this super interesting FUTUREVVORLD article by Karl Smith, several new (and exciting) developments in the materials space are discussed. One of the fantastic applications of biomanufacturing is the production of new materials, and this article outlines several companies making waves using mycelium and algae. In addition to “traditional” biomanufacturing, there are some cool applications of circular economy thinking and waste upcycling (eg. a leather-like material made from apple waste derived from the juice industry, and sunglasses made from recycled wetsuits).

2?? https://agfundernews.com/gas-fermentation-co-lanzatech-enters-food-arena-weve-developed-a-path-to-mass-producing-protein-from-co2

After interviewing David McLellan from gas-fermentation company Jooules last week, I dived deep into other companies working in this space. LanzaTech have been operational since 2018, using microbial fermentation to drive production of ethanol. In October Lanzatech announced that by using a new microbe they would be able to produce large quantities of a nutrient rich (complete) protein. The microbial strain used to generate protein has been designed to use CO2 and H2 as feedstock, and the facility is expected to be fully operational by 2028.

3?? https://www.science.org/content/article/synthetic-biology-once-hailed-moneymaker-meets-tough-times

When it comes to synbio and startups, the last 12 months have been rough. Amyris and Zymergen have disappeared and been sold off, while Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc. has scaled back its workforce by 30%. This article is a fantastic deep(ish)-dive into what has happened. Discussing the challenges faced by industrial biotechnology (product market fit and scale are two key challenges discussed) it’s interesting to hear some of the founders reflect on what went wrong. Much of the challenge for non-clinical biomanufacturing remains the need to produce a large-volume and low-cost product (where clinical biomanufacturing can produce low-volume and high-value products).

?? Biomanufacturing jobs

This is a new section for my newsletter that I’m trialling out. If you have a role that you’d like me to share (anywhere in the world), then please email me - [email protected]

These are just a few jobs that caught my eye this week:

1?? Manufacturing Engineer @ Vow (Sydney, NSW, Australia)

https://www.dhirubhai.net/jobs/view/4074356214

2?? Senior Scientist - Media Development @ Mosa Meat (Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands)

https://www.dhirubhai.net/jobs/view/4048958205

3?? (Senior) Fermentation Scientist/Engineer @ Callaghan Innovation (Lower Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand)

https://www.dhirubhai.net/jobs/view/4074871663

Until next week,

James

PS- If you are working on something amazing in the biomanufacturing space, and you’d like to featured in the newsletter - I’d love to hear from you!