Ginkgo and Sumitomo Chemical aim to create products that will bring significant benefits to consumers by supplying an ingredient that is animal-free and more sustainable than what’s currently on the market.
Ginkgo Bioworks started working with Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd, one of Japan’s leading chemical companies, in June 2021 to help significantly increase the production efficiency and sustainability of bio-based commercial products across a broad array of industries. Today, we’re pleased to announce a second collaboration. The new project plans to target a molecule intended to enable the introduction of more sustainable and cost-competitive products in the personal care and cosmetic industries. This molecule is envisioned to augment or replace an ingredient that is currently gathered from animal sources—a process which is not sustainable and also unappealing to many consumers—by producing it via fermentation instead.
What if you could grow ingredients instead of using animal sources?
“The cosmetics industry is demanding more sustainable and cost-competitive beauty and personal care products, as are many others we serve and we see tremendous potential in synthetic biology’s ability to make this possible at a commercial scale,” said Hiroshi Ueda, Executive Vice President of Sumitomo Chemical. “We’re encouraged by the progress of our ongoing first project with Ginkgo, and we believe it’s clear from how well our teams collaborate that we will also be able to find success within additional product areas as well. Through this project, we aim to build our own capability on fermentation production with, active involvement of our new organization SynBio Hub.”
Ginkgo’s platform provides unique advantages thanks to its growing codebase.
Not only is this project a natural fit for Ginkgo’s platform, but it provides the perfect opportunity to leverage and showcase our growing codebase. Ginkgo has prior experience developing a precursor molecule to the one Sumitomo Chemical is currently targeting. The data and experience Ginkgo has on this precursor molecule has significantly accelerated our current program with Sumitomo Chemical, possibly saving Sumitomo Chemical multiple years off its development timeline.
Find the full press release here along with all of the latest news from the Ginkgo team.
