SynBio Coalition Announces Synonym Biotechnologies As Newest Member

WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 8, 2022) – Today, the Synthetic Biology (SynBio) Coalition announced Synonym Biotechnologies, a New York City-based biomanufacturing company, as the newest member of the growing coalition, now representing 12 leading companies and universities nationwide.

Synonym is a financing and development platform for biomanufacturing infrastructure to enable sustainable food, materials, and energy production. Focused on resolving the biomanufacturing capacity bottleneck, Synonym is working towards establishing engineering guidelines and creating technologies for standardizing facility buildout. To bring these facilities to market, Synonym is developing a first-of-its-kind underwriting platform to assess and mitigate risks for capital allocators with the goal of lowering the cost and increasing speed-to-market for biologically synthesized products. By inaugurating biomanufacturing facilities as a new asset class, Synonym unlocks greatly needed value for both the synthetic biology ecosystem and for investors seeking exposure to next-generation sustainable infrastructure.

“We believe that as transformative as chemistry was to the 20th century, biology will be to the 21st,” said Edward Shenderovich, Co-Founder and CEO of Synonym Biotechnologies. “We are pleased to join the SynBio Coalition to support ongoing efforts to create a robust ecosystem in the United States that realizes synthetic biology’s potential, reduces our dependencies on foreign supply chains and creates more homegrown jobs in every corner of America.”

Synonym Biotechnologies joins the SynBio Coalition at an important time, as the coalition continues to advocate for passage of key legislation, such as the Bipartisan Innovation Act (S.1260) to provide funding for synthetic biology research and development. This bill, currently being negotiated by House and Senate conferees to reconcile differences, contains important provisions, including:

- Supply Chain Resilience: The House’s bill establishes an Office of Manufacturing Security and Reliance at the Department of Commerce, provides $45 billion in grants and loans to onshore critical supply chains and identifies synthetic biology as a “key technology focus area.”

- Endless Frontiers Act: The Senate’s bill identifies synthetic biology as a “key technology focus area” at the Directorate for Technology and Innovation in the National Science Foundation (NSF) to strengthen U.S. leadership in synthetic biology research and development nationwide.

- Bioeconomy Research & Development Act of 2021: An act included in the House and Senate bills prioritizes research funding for the Departments of Energy, Agriculture and NASA to improve public-private coordination.
Founded in 2021, the SynBio Coalition works with the federal government and industry to grow the U.S. bioeconomy, drive technological innovation, and secure supply chains in the sectors of biological health, preparedness, energy, transportation, food, and everyday products. Its focus also includes building domestic manufacturing capacity and infrastructure across the country.

Synthetic biology is a dynamic field unlocking the power of nature to produce novel products with sustainable design across industries as varied as pharmaceuticals and medical treatments, food and agriculture, plastics, apparel, energy, consumer electronics, and personal and home care.

About Synonym Biotechnologies:

Synonym Biotechnologies (New York, NY) is building a financing and development platform for biomanufacturing infrastructure. Through its proprietary underwriting methodology, unique design standards and innovative development approach, Synonym is able to unlock investment opportunities for capital markets, while simultaneously reducing the cost of capital for synthetic biology companies. By partnering with the synthetic biology ecosystem from site selection through facility commissioning, Synonym unlocks the production capacity required to realize the potential of the emerging bioeconomy. For more information, visit https://synonym.bio/

The SynBio Coalition was founded by three of America’s leading synthetic biology companies who make up the steering committee:

Antheia (Menlo Park, CA) is unlocking the medicinal power of nature. Its synthetic biology platform surpasses the limits of conventional drug discovery and manufacturing through a novel approach to whole-cell engineering — reconstructing complex molecules in yeast to bring to market next-generation plant-inspired medicines. Antheia’s team of scientists and technologists is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. For more information, visit www.antheia.bio.

 
Geno (San Diego, CA) is remaking everyday products and materials with more sustainable, high-performance ingredients, made from renewable sources like plants rather than fossil fuels. Geno's first commercial products and partnerships with leading industrial firms and brands are already having high impact in plastics and cosmetics, with more coming in apparel, homecare, auto parts and more. Geno's Innovation Center is in San Diego, California. For more information, visit www.genomatica.com.

Ginkgo Bioworks (Boston, MA) is building a platform to enable customers to program cells as easily as we can program computers. The company's platform is enabling biotechnology applications across diverse markets, from food and agriculture to industrial chemicals to pharmaceuticals. Ginkgo has also actively supported a number of COVID-19 response efforts, including K-12 pooled testing, vaccine manufacturing optimization and therapeutics discovery. For more information, visit ginkgobioworks.com.

Additional Members Include:

Checkerspot (Alameda, CA & Salt Lake City, UT) designs performance materials and ingredients at a molecular level. Checkerspot’s vertically integrated WING™ Platform optimizes microalgae to biomanufacture unique oils that are turned into new materials that demonstrate improved performance properties in targeted hardgoods, textiles, personal care, and food applications and products. Checkerspot's first commercialized materials are next generation polyurethanes and textile finishes designed to improve the performance of consumer products. The company is currently commercializing performance composites engineered into skis and sold through its brand WNDR® Alpine, as well as algal oil formulated into miDori® BioWick and sold in partnership with Beyond Surface Technologies. Checkerspot's mission is to expand the palette of molecular building blocks for high performance and sustainable materials for better products. For more information, visit https://checkerspot.com/.

Geltor (Emeryville, CA) is the company igniting what’s possible through biodesign, with the most advanced protein ingredients for beauty and personal care, food and nutrition, and beyond. Through its ingredient technologies, Geltor offers best-in-class innovation and otherwise impossible-to-source bioactives that are uniquely able to respond to changing customer needs sustainably, with unprecedented speed and precision. Geltor and its growing portfolio of biodesigned hero ingredients have been recognized for their excellence and innovation by industry leaders including CEW, Personal Care Products Council, Society of Cosmetic Chemists, and ICMAD Indie Beauty Innovators Awards. For more information, visit www.geltor.com.

 
SaponiQx (Lexington, MA) plans to be a global, integrated immune-education medicine company which is planning to develop safe and effective immunomodulators to protect the world's population from health threats. Its pipeline is led by the best-in-class QS21 Stimulon™ adjuvant already used in GSK's Shingrix™ vaccine and is expected to include a wide-ranging portfolio of saponin-based adjuvants and vaccines, including AutoSynVax™, PhosphoSynVax™, and Prophage™. For more information, visit https://saponiqx.com/.

Swiftscale Biologics (San Francisco, CA) provides cell-free protein synthesis for fast expression, high-throughput synthesis, and complex protein production. Swiftscale Biologics uses an innovative development and manufacturing platform that can significantly accelerate the normal timelines for translation of biologics. We rapidly transform scientific discoveries into protein products ready for human clinical trials.

Solugen (Houston, TX) was founded in 2016 by Gaurab Chakrabarti, M.D., Ph.D., and Sean Hunt, Ph.D., Solugen is a specialty chemicals manufacturer and world’s first and only producer of bio-based chemical peroxide solutions that applies green chemistry principles to re-design the production of a variety of ingredients. Solugen's mission is to help the fight against climate change by creating cleaner, greener, and safer chemical processes that reduce reliance on non-renewable resources and energy-intensive manufacturing, without sacrificing safety and efficacy. For more information, visit https://www.solugen.com/.

Northeastern University (Boston, MA) is home to a dynamic collection of labs focused on collaborations with academic researchers and various synthetic biology industries. Supported by several faculty working in this space, Northeastern University is leading innovative analysis and production in numerous fields of synthetic biology to support health care, therapeutics, plant-derived pharmaceuticals and cell engineering.

 
Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) is home to the Center for Synthetic Biology, a research lab that draws from the tools and concepts of physics, engineering, and computer science to explore four unique themes: cell-free systems, mammalian systems, enabling technologies, and ethics and societal impact. For more information, visit https://syntheticbiology.northwestern.edu/.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak Ridge, TN) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. The Synthetic Biology Group develops and applies principles and techniques for biosystems design in non-model organisms, biofuels crops, and associated biosystems to solve renewable energy and environmental challenges. The group focuses on engineering plants, bacteria, and fungi for a variety of applications. For more information, visit https://www.ornl.gov/group/synthetic-biology.

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