Dear colleagues, friends, and followers:
This year has been ripe with growth, major achievements, and opportunities to showcase who and what make Antheia the visionary business it is. Nearly eight years ago, we co-founded Antheia to transform today’s fragile pharmaceutical supply chain and ensure equitable access to essential medicines. As we look back at a fruitful year, we want to highlight the exceptional progress our team has made:
New Financing
In June 2022, Antheia announced $40M in venture debt financing from Oxford Finance LLC and Silicon Valley Bank. This new financing will help propel Antheia into its next stage of growth and we are thrilled to welcome new investors in our journey to transform pharmaceutical supply chains and build the next generation of biomanufacturing.
Team Growth
In 2022, we added 20 new people to our team who have been instrumental in achieving our business and technical goals, and moving toward commercialization. Three notable additions to our leadership team include Zack McGahey, our Chief Operating Officer, Heidi Pucel, our Chief People Officer, and Guerin Kob, our Head of Supply Chain. As we look to 2023, we will continue to grow our team strategically and lead all recruitment efforts with diversity and inclusion at the forefront.
Technical Validation
This year, we successfully completed several pilot runs for our first products, additional customer sampling and validation, and announced our plans to build an on-site pilot plant facility adjacent to Antheia’s headquarters in Menlo Park, CA.
The U.S. government has also recognized the power of synthetic biology. In July, the CHIPS-PLUS legislation was passed and included two key provisions that support the advancement of the U.S. synthetic biology industry: the Endless Frontier Act and the Bioeconomy Research and Development Act. The Biden Administration also issued an executive order in September focused specifically on advancing biotechnology and biomanufacturing innovation for a more robust American bioeconomy.
With a brilliant team, expanding footprint, and a pipeline brewing with possibility, we’re looking forward to an even bigger year for our company in 2023. As we move closer to bringing our vision to reality, it’s also the perfect time to reflect on the reasons that drive and impact the work we do – and the many ways that Antheia is committed to operating as an organization.
While we have long held the following core values and guiding principles at the heart of our work, today we share them with all of you as our public declaration of our unstoppable mission. They are the north star by which Antheia makes and drives all of its business decisions and we’re proud to share this more widely as we continue on our path toward transforming pharmaceutical supply chains that can better meet the demands of today’s healthcare system.
We look forward to sharing our progress with you all in 2023 and beyond.
Cheers,
Christina Smolke, PhD Kristy Hawkins, PhD
CEO and Co-Founder CSO and Co-Founder
Our Values
Antheia is committed to unleashing the power of plants to inspire the next generation of medicines. Antheia is disrupting the pharmaceutical supply chain to sustainably and more effectively produce plant-derived essential medicines that are difficult to manufacture at commercial scale. Antheia’s work unlocks the full potential of nature with synthetic biology, in order to discover new medicines, and realize a more efficient, resilient, and equitable pharmaceutical manufacturing model. We are passionate about leveraging this platform approach to make the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and key starting materials (KSM) for much-needed pharmaceuticals classified as essential medicines by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. We focus on producing these molecules to ensure essential medicines are readily accessible to all who need them, with our work specifically aiming to reduce and eliminate sourcing constraints that disrupt reliable supply chains and access, and increase drug prices. As such:
- We value socially responsible and ethical production of APIs and KSMs;
- We value socially responsible healthcare and consider equitable access and equitable distribution of the supply of essential medicines a critical function of socially responsible healthcare that supports all patients in reaching their full health potential;
- We value socially responsible innovation and investment in synthetic biology that improves health equity in ways neglected through the current pharmaceutical and healthcare paradigm, and that provides broader access to essential medicines in transparent, traceable, and cost effective ways;
- We value pharmaceutical supply solutions that do not seek to shift old ways of plant-based production that heavily tax natural and labor resources, but instead transform production with true, forward-thinking modernization efforts;
- We value supply chains that heal the planet, and do not harm our environment, by spurring the reduction of demands on land and agricultural resources, and reduction of environmental harm caused throughout the continuum of the supply chain.
Our Guiding Principles
Antheia strives to be a leader in transparent and transformative essential medicine production. The following are our guiding principles – the value-based beliefs we hold as ethical imperatives – and some of the fundamental ways our organization strives to embody our values in all the work we do:
- Access to medicine: Medicines that reduce suffering are a human right, not a privilege – including but not limited to medicines used to alleviate suffering in palliative care, neurological diseases, and cancer treatment.
- Safety and Quality: Prioritizing quality and safety is paramount. We strive to inspire a race to the top of technology development that champions quality and safety standards, ensuring the essential medicines industry always meets and exceeds the highest levels of excellence and regulatory requirements.
- Sustainability: Improving planetary health and believing that the future of our planet depends on our ability to transform how we source our supply chains, including those for essential medicines. We’re committed to flipping the paradigm of medicine production and moving away from the traditional model of resource-intensive farming and overharvesting that has had cascading impacts on global biodiversity.
- Equity: Advancing health equity through our work and embracing the many definitions of health equity that focus on allowing patients to reach their full health potential without barriers. Antheia’s work aims to reduce barriers surrounding access to and distribution of essential medicines and champions equitable access, availability, and affordability so everyone can access medicines that are essential to their health.
- Resilience: Resilient, responsive, and sustainable supply chains are the future of manufacturing and will support the production of plant-inspired solutions to current pharmaceutical challenges.
- Transparency: Transparency within supply chains ensures visibility and traceability throughout a medicine’s journey from lab to patient. We support minimizing the footprint of APIs and KSMs as much as possible.