Is Synthetic Biology Disrupting Your Industry? Are You Preparing?

By 2030, half the S&P companies will be replaced. Will your company be one of them?

The recent Boston Consulting Group report on synthetic biology highlights five ways synbio pioneers are innovating. They are:

1. Creating innovative products and novel processes. Companies such as Eat Just, Upside Foods, and Meati are innovating the growth of chicken, duck, and beef meats in bioreactors. Singapore is selling cell-culture chicken. In THE GENESIS MACHINE, Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel paint a scenario where a restaurant critic reviews bioreactor grown meats (it’s a fun - and mouth-watering - chapter). What will happen to your company when livestock agriculture is replaced by precision fermentation? When consumers expect no-kill meat? What opportunities does precision?fermentation offer?

2. Improving the performance of existing products or processes. Several United Nations’ Sustainability Goals require rethinking the processes used in manufacturing. (#6 Clean Water.?#11 Sustainable Cities. #12 Responsible Production & Consumption). Synthetic biology companies are already demonstrating the use of waste as a resource. Polybion is a company usin agricultural waste to produce high-performance materials. Other companies rusing waste streams include LanzaTech (fuel), Kiverdi and NovoNutrients (proteins), and Mango Materials (fibers and materials). Are there waste streams in your industry that are potentially valuable?

3. Reducing the costs or increasing the availability of scarce raw materials. Rare earth metals are used in nearly all electronics yet there is a production monopoly that controls prices and access. Rare earths are actually not that rare -- they’re hard to extract and refine. Synbio offers the opportunity to “mine” such metals without the environmental damage. (If you know of a company that is doing this, please let me know.) Are there rare materials in your supply chain that could be produced locally? With biology?

4. Creating products or raw materials that are more environmentally friendly. Consumers want ingredients they believe are "natural." At the same time, personal care companies are looking to decrease their environmental impact. Yet consumers do not understand that if products are made using natural ingredients it would take a planet and a half to supply the demand. Natural products can be produced using a diverse range of environmentally friendly bio-manufacturing processes. Companies such as Calyxt and Core Biogenesis are using plants and plant cells to produce natural ingredients at scale. Companies such as Enginzyme can do so without cells. Are there ingredients you’re depending on that could be produced with biology?

5. Creating resilient supply chains. The pandemic demonstrated our supply chains are fragile. Being dependent on suppliers on the other side of the world no longer makes economic (or environmental sense). Synbio offers the opportunity to localize production in ways that are still being defined. Newly funded Arcaea plans to do just this for the cosmetics and personal care supply chain. Where are the point of failure in your supply chain? Could those be secured with local production?

The BCG report is worth reading. This is the second of three posts I’m writing to summarize that report..