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Scaling synthetic biology as a manufacturing platform

How Antheia is reaching commercial scale with plant-inspired pharmaceuticals

For decades, synthetic biology has promised to make manufacturing more efficient, sustainable, and responsive to sudden changes in supply and demand. It has the potential to create new value across industries by transforming everything from food to pharmaceuticals.

That new manufacturing system is within reach. Advances in synbio have made it possible to produce highly complex and valuable molecules at scale. These advances have also reduced the time and cost involved in research and development. We’re now at a point where we can reconstruct the full complexity of nature’s chemistries.

At Antheia, we’ve demonstrated the scaled production of complex small-molecule biopharmaceuticals, and we believe the technology is ready for commercialization. I’ll explain how we got here, the approach we’re taking, and why we see it as a big win for the industry.

Changing the Economics of Manufacturing

Previous synbio work focused on relatively simple molecules such as biofuels and commodity chemicals typically derived from petroleum. These products sold at a low price point, delivering low returns on the significant time and cost involved in manufacturing them. At the time, the industry was simultaneously investing in synbio tool development and infrastructure, which further slowed development time and increased R&D cost.

Those economics have changed as technology has improved. Synbio tools have matured, including DNA sequencing and synthesis, the use of automation and high-throughput screening, and, of course, CRISPR/Cas for genetic engineering. These and other advances in the field allow the synthesis of more complex molecules at scale with less time and cost involved in development.

At Antheia, we’re applying established strategies, infrastructure, and processes for commercial-scale fermentation to our work in complex small-molecule biopharmaceuticals. By building on the foundation of first-generation synbio, we’ve scaled the production of highly complex molecules that command higher prices than earlier synbio products. These products sell at thousands of dollars per kilo rather than tens or low hundreds.

A Milestone in Scaling Biopharmaceuticals

Antheia focuses on several classes of plant-inspired pharmaceuticals, many of which can’t be produced through synthetic chemistry due to the complexity of their chemical structures. Our first product is commonly used as a key starting material for a number of essential medicines. In two recent pilot runs, our team produced this molecule at commercially relevant titers (300L) and demonstrated the resulting material is chemically equivalent to that extracted from plants.

Our recent pilot run at 300L scale with manufacturing-ready downstream recovery processes for our first molecule

This achievement is significant for a few reasons. The first is sophistication of the strain engineering demonstrating one of the most extensive pathways ever re-created in a microbial host. The intricate ring structure and stereochemistry requires the expression of over 20 heterologous genes and a number of other modifications to increase productivity. Second, this work demonstrates our technology’s ability to scale — these strains are genetically stable and the fermentation process can be reproduced consistently at large volumes. The target molecules accumulate in the fermentation broth, simplifying the downstream purification process and allowing for high recovery and purity.

A Holistic Approach and Flywheel Effect

Moving from R&D to commercial production requires a holistic view—ensuring that each part of the process works together, from upstream strain engineering to fermentation to downstream processing. Simply optimizing one or two single metrics (e.g., titer) will not achieve this goal. We’ve built an agile yet collaborative team that can iterate quickly across functions, which allows us to optimize for cost of goods sold (COGS) per kilogram across the entire manufacturing process.

We also built an internal platform for sharing data between individual scientists and across departments. This helps our team apply insights from fermentation and associated processes to future strain design. By maintaining a nimble team, we can quickly iterate through the design-build-test-learn cycle to accelerate the development and optimization of new strains and processes.

Our in-house fermentation system for both high throughput experiments and pre-pilot scale (30L) development

Looking Ahead

While Antheia continues to iterate and evolve, we’re confident that we’re on the right track to full-scale manufacturing. The pilot programs show that results from our lab-scale runs are highly indicative of strain and process performance at larger scales. Extrapolating from our pilot results, we’re confident that commercial production with our manufacturing partners is both achievable and imminent.

My co-founder Christina Smolke and I started Antheia because we believed in the potential of synbio to create the next generation of medicines. Scaling our technology is essential to realizing that vision. The industry has come a long way toward scaling a new manufacturing platform that supports a resilient supply chain, and this progress inspires us to keep pushing the technology forward.

*Photo credits: Daniel Yim & Yuki Higa

Richard Sherwin

Head of Commercialization

Richard is an industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience in the KSM, API, and intermediate markets. He is responsible for leading the commercialization and revenue generation for Antheia’s robust pipeline of products. Richard brings an exceptional track record of leading international sales teams, driving revenue growth, building strategic partnerships, and delivering innovative products to market, including ANDA and NDA developments. Richard led commercial efforts at some of the leading global pharmaceutical companies and most recently, built his own consultancy business advising a range of clients, including $1B divisions of major multinationals.

Appropriate regulatory submissions will be prepared and submitted to support Antheia’s customers who need to reference and access necessary process-related information.

Yihui Zhu, PhD

Head of Fermentation

Yihui leads the fermentation team at Antheia. With over 25 years of hands-on experience in the field, he brings in-depth knowledge and expertise in microbial metabolism and fermentation process development. He is also skilled in developing comprehensive fermentation data collection, analysis, and visualization systems. Prior to joining Antheia, he served as a fermentation lead at Intrexon and Codexis where he successfully built fermentation labs and teams and led multiple biofuel and biochemical projects to reach stretch milestones and tech transfer. Yihui is passionate about the potential of fermentation and is dedicated to advancing the field through innovative research and development.

Yen-Hsiang Wang, PhD

Head of Strategy, Partnerships, and Finance

Yen-Hsiang leads strategy, partnerships and finance at Antheia. He completed his M.S. and Ph.D. in Bioengineering at Stanford, with extensive research experience in synthetic biology, metabolic engineering and computational modeling. Before joining Antheia, he worked at McKinsey and Tencent with a strong focus in corporate strategy and big data/advanced analytics. At Tencent, he served as Director of Strategy and Business Development for the AI Lab, leading corporate initiatives in healthcare AI/ML applications and commercialization. He also served in AI4H (Artificial Intelligence for Health), a collaboration between WHO and ITU, to establish global standards for AI in healthcare.

Audrey Wang

Head of Financial Planning and Analysis

Audrey leads financial planning and analysis at Antheia. With an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis, Audrey is passionate about leveraging financial analysis, digital technology, and data analytics to guide companies in making optimal investments and strategic business decisions. Audrey has a decade of experience in helping companies solve unique problems and creating long-term impact with unconventional approaches. Before joining Antheia, she was at Vir Biotechnology and Merck where she led various FP&A workstreams, including investment valuation, asset prioritization, and manufacturing sites operation finance support. Audrey completed CFA Level II and passed the U.S. CPA exam in 2011.

Antonij Tjahjadi, CPA

Head of Accounting

Antonij Tjahjadi leads accounting at Antheia and holds active CPA license. He joined Antheia with more than 20 years of experience in corporate accounting, bringing deep expertise in ramping up accounting operations for start-up companies, SEC reporting/technical accounting, and SOX implementation efforts. Before joining Antheia, he held various leading roles in both public and private company settings, including directing accounting functions at Ambys Medicines, where he successfully implemented Netsuite with Point Purchasing integration and set up various accounting policies and processes, and played a key role in the initial public offering of Nutanix, Inc.

Ken Takeoka

Head of Biology

Ken leads the Biology team at Antheia, which incorporates both strain and protein engineering functions. He has more than 16 years of experience in the synthetic biology field, working with leading companies, including Amyris and Novartis. One of his passions is molecular biology tool development and he previously worked to build the foundation for the automated strain engineering pipeline at Amyris. At Novartis, he modernized the molecular biology techniques and established a platform to model mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in a range of organisms.

Suzanne Sato

Head of Downstream Processing

Suzy leads downstream chemistry processes at Antheia. She has 19 years of experience in process development, including route development through synthetic chemistry and scale-up of small molecule APIs for GPCR targets under cGMP for Phase I-III trials. Before joining Antheia, Suzy led a full DSP team at Amyris where she successfully pivoted developments from biofuels hydrocarbon products to pharmaceutical intermediate, flavor, fragrance and nutraceutical products. She led a team that scaled 11 products and took five products to commercial manufacturing.

Farrah Pulce, PMP

Head of Project Management

Farrah leads program and project management at Antheia. She has over 20 years of experience leading program and project management, operations, and engineering for companies across the CPG, aerospace, and automotive industries. Prior to joining Antheia, Farrah implemented and led the sustaining program management team at Impossible Foods. She also led product operations, project management, and cost optimization at Blue Bottle Coffee and Tyson Foods to develop and commercialize new products. As a certified project management professional (PMP), Farrah has a proven record of successful project delivery, improving project management practices, and building collaborative teams.

Jordyn Lee

Head of Communications

Jordyn leads communications and external affairs at Antheia. She brings a decade of multidisciplinary communications experience in helping companies make complex science and technology accessible to broad audiences, all while maintaining technical accuracy and integrity. She has a passion for visionary storytelling and translating impact across the entire communications ecosystem – her work has spanned from public relations to corporate communications to marketing. Jordyn has served as an advisor to a number of different life sciences companies and most recently led corporate communications at Amyris.

Ben Kotopka, PhD

Head of Data Science

As Head of Data Science at Antheia, Ben manages in-house software development and external partnerships for storing and interpreting research data, executing bioinformatics analyses, and streamlining business processes. Prior to Antheia, Ben worked as an academic researcher at the intersection of machine learning, bioinformatics, and synthetic biology. Following this, as an entrepreneur and consultant, he developed and deployed data science solutions for biotechnology applications ranging from metabolomics-driven compound discovery to MRI segmentation.

Guerin Kob

Head of Supply Chain

Guerin is responsible for leading the design, development, management and improvement of Antheia’s end-to-end global supply chain. He has over 15 years of experience leading high-performing supply chain and procurement teams at leading biotechnology and specialty chemical companies, with extensive experience in process development and end-to-end supply chain optimization. Prior to joining Antheia, Guerin served as Senior Director of Global Supply Chain for Sumitomo Chemical’s biotechnology division with Valent Biosciences, where he led the end-to end supply chain including procurement, logistics and distribution, integrated business planning, materials management, customer service, and supply planning functions globally.

Pavel Aronov, PhD

Head of Bioanalytics

Pavel leads the Bioanalytics team at Antheia. He has 20 years of experience in analytical and clinical chemistry, mass spectrometry, chromatography, and metabolomics. Pavel built and led the original Chemistry and Analytics team at Impossible Foods enabling strain development, fermentation, DSP, regulatory, QC, and scale-up of leghemoglobin biomanufacturing. During his academic career at UC Davis and Stanford University Pavel developed a vitamin D assay used by all major clinical diagnostics laboratories and pioneered metabolomics studies to investigate kidney disease and microbiome.

Jesse Ahrendt

Head of Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs

Jesse has more than 25 years of experience in regulatory affairs, quality systems, manufacturing quality, and regulated industries, ranging from early- to late-stage pharmaceuticals, biomanufacturing, consumer care, and medical devices. He has supported global product launches and the underlying quality supply chain components in industries that require strict adherence to internationally accepted quality standards. Before Antheia, he led quality efforts at Zymergen and Sandoz, and supported many global pharmaceutical companies during his time in Biotech Consulting at NSF International, all to bring quality to the forefront in manufacturing, standardize global processes, and support customer regulatory requirements.

Heidi Pucel

Chief People Officer

Heidi is a results-driven human resources executive and HR business partner who leverages decades of experience in empowering, motivating, and inspiring to drive transformation within high-performing and rapidly-growing workforces. A certified executive coach and passionate advocate for people-oriented solutions, Pucel serves as a partner to executive teams to design programs that support employee development, engagement, and recruitment and retention. Pucel most recently served as Chief People Officer for Countsy, where she worked as an interim HR executive for clients in the biotechnology and software industries, such as Ceribell and Tune Therapeutics.

Zack McGahey

Chief Operating Officer

Zack is a leading executive in operations management, specializing in bioprocess engineering and manufacturing management. He has over 20 years of experience leading manufacturing functions for companies across the pharmaceutical, synthetic biology, diagnostics, and automotive industries. Before joining Antheia, Zack was VP of manufacturing and capex project management at Zymergen. He also gained experience managing commercial scale facilities operations for Tesla, where he was responsible for managing 10 million square feet of factory, lab and warehouse space during the Model 3 ramp.

Kristy Hawkins, PhD

Co-Founder & CSO

Kristy has over 20 years of experience in the field of synthetic biology, focusing on yeast metabolic engineering for the production of small molecules. She did the founding work on the benzylisoquinoline alkaloid pathway during her graduate studies and gained valuable industry experience at Amyris and Lygos. Kristy is an expert in tool development, high-throughput screening, and host strain and heterologous pathway engineering.

Christina Smolke, PhD

Co-Founder & CEO

Christina is a pioneer in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, where she has over 20 years of experience. As Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, her laboratory led the breakthrough research to engineer baker’s yeast to produce some of the most complex and valuable medicines known. Under her leadership, Antheia’s synthetic biology platform enables new possibilities for drug discovery and efficient, sustainable, transparent, and on-demand drug manufacturing at scale. Her vision and accomplishments have garnered numerous awards, including the Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator, NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, Nature’s 10, Novozymes Award for Excellence in Biochemical Engineering, and TR35 Award.

Antheia announces first commercial delivery

Appropriate regulatory submissions will be prepared and submitted to support Antheia’s customers who need to reference and access necessary process-related information.