Ginkgo Bioworks Announces R&D Collaboration with Sumitomo Chemical to Develop More Sustainable Bio-Based Chemicals for Multiple Industries

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Jun 07, 2021, 07:30 ET

BOSTON, June 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc. ("Ginkgo") today announced the signing of a program in a partnership with the Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. ("Sumitomo Chemical"), one of Japan's leading chemical companies. Ginkgo is building the leading horizontal platform for cell programming, to serve customers across industries seeking to develop better products. Sumitomo Chemical seeks to leverage Ginkgo's long-established expertise in organism engineering to significantly increase the production efficiency and sustainability of a key bio-based commercial product.

As cell programming has evolved to become faster, more precise and cost-effective, companies across industries have been able to replace petroleum-based products, or optimize existing biology mediated manufacturing processes, through engineering microbial strains.

Sumitomo Chemical was founded around a mission to drive societal impact and solve environmental challenges through technology, and the company has chosen to leverage Ginkgo's extensive cell programming platform and biological codebase to explore next generation solutions as Sumitomo Chemical looks to utilize more bio-based production methods.

"We're proud to partner with Sumitomo Chemical and help them realize the potential of synthetic biology to deliver new, more sustainable and efficiently manufactured bio-based products to markets where innovation is an absolute imperative," said Jason Kelly, CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks. "Sumitomo Chemical and Ginkgo are united by the shared belief in the power of biology to build a better future, and we're excited to see what we can accomplish together."

"Ginkgo is unparalleled in organism design expertise, and we're looking forward to combining their high-throughput genome editing and fermentation capabilities with our chemical technologies and industry insights in health and crop sciences," said Hiroshi Ueda, CTO of Sumitomo Chemical. "Continued investment in synthetic biology will help us deliver to our customers more efficient and sustainable solutions across a myriad of industries."

Ginkgo Bioworks
Ginkgo 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 is also actively supporting a number of COVID-19 response efforts, including K-12 pooled testing, vaccine manufacturing optimization and therapeutics discovery. For more information, visit www.ginkgobioworks.com.

About Sumitomo Chemical Company Limited
Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Sumitomo Chemical is one of Japan's leading chemical companies, offering a diverse range of products globally in the fields of petrochemicals, energy and functional materials, IT-related chemicals and materials, health and crop science products, and pharmaceuticals. The company's consolidated net sales for fiscal year 2019 were JPY 2 trillion and number of employees is about 33,000 as of March 31, 2020. For additional information, visit the company's website at https://www.sumitomo-chem.co.jp/english/.

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SOURCE Ginkgo Bioworks