FREDsense and Ginkgo Bioworks Announce Partnership to Develop Water Quality Biosensors

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Apr 13, 2022, 07:00 ET

FREDsense will leverage Ginkgo's strain development platform capabilities to develop advanced biosensors capable of detecting harmful molecules and toxins in any water source

CALGARY, Canada and BOSTON, April 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- FREDsense Technologies Corp, a next generation water quality platform company leveraging synthetic biology to build field kits for faster, cheaper, and more efficient analysis, and Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA), the leading horizontal platform for cell programming, today announced a partnership to build biosensors for water quality monitoring and detection. Through this partnership, Ginkgo seeks to build four distinct microbial strain biosensors, compatible with FREDsense's field-ready hardware for remote water quality monitoring applications.

Water quality has become a growing environmental and public health concern, increasing the demand for scalable monitoring and testing systems. With conventional water quality tests, transporting samples to labs for chemical analysis can lead to lengthy delays in reporting. FREDsense builds portable solutions to efficiently assess the chemicals in the water at the source, allowing for rapid modification of water treatment processes in real-time without the need for external lab equipment.

"Water is our most critical resource, and we now have the technology to detect in real-time many of the threats or contaminants that can impact the water that our environments and communities depend on," says David Lloyd, CEO of FREDsense. "Through this partnership with Ginkgo, we aim to introduce rapid, simple and accurate testing to deliver water quality monitoring systems to those that most need it. We believe that synthetic biology is the key to solving some of the biggest challenges facing the water industry globally and are very excited to partner with Ginkgo on this vision."

The biosensors in development by Ginkgo aim to enable real-time field detection of harmful molecules, and may be used to generate solutions for groundwater and industrial water management systems.

"Partnering with FREDsense is an exciting opportunity to apply Ginkgo's strain development capabilities to powerful biosensor technology for an important application," said Jason Kelly, CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks. "Protecting our water sources is a mission critical initiative: life on this planet as we know it depends on it. We're eager to work toward enhancing the capabilities of FREDsense's platform to monitor for harmful contaminants in water."

About FREDsense Technologies Corp.
FREDsense is a world leader in portable and rapid water instrumentation systems for the water industry. We specialize in analyzing water chemistry in real-time using next generation biological sensor technology. With modular and customizable sensor solutions, FREDsense is moving analytical lab analysis into the field empowering water utilities, environmental consulting firms and heavy industry to start optimizing their water sources in ways it has never been possible before. We are FREDsense, and we are building better biosensors.

About 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 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 www.ginkgobioworks.com.

Forward-Looking Statements of Ginkgo Bioworks
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding the potential success and objectives of the partnership and Ginkgo's cell programming platform. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words "believe," "can," "project," "potential," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "strategy," "future," "opportunity," "plan," "may," "should," "will," "would," "will be," "will continue," "will likely result," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not limited to: (i) the effect of Ginkgo's business combination with Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp. ("Soaring Eagle") on Ginkgo's business relationships, performance, and business generally, (ii) risks that the business combination disrupts current plans of Ginkgo and potential difficulties in Ginkgo's employee retention, (iii) the outcome of any legal proceedings that may be instituted against Ginkgo related to its business combination with Soaring Eagle, (iv) volatility in the price of Ginkgo's securities now that it is a public company due to a variety of factors, including changes in the competitive and highly regulated industries in which Ginkgo operates and plans to operate, variations in performance across competitors, changes in laws and regulations affecting Ginkgo's business and changes in the combined capital structure, (v) the ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other expectations after the completion of the business combination, and identify and realize additional opportunities, (vi) the risk of downturns in demand for products using synthetic biology, (vii) the unpredictability of the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and the demand for COVID-19 testing and the commercial viability of our COVID-19 testing business, and (viii) changes to the biosecurity industry, including due to advancements in technology, emerging competition and evolution in industry demands, standards and regulations. The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and uncertainties described in the "Risk Factors" section of Ginkgo's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on March 29, 2022 and other documents filed by Ginkgo from time to time with the SEC. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and Ginkgo assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Ginkgo does not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations.

GINKGO BIOWORKS INVESTOR CONTACT:
[email protected]

GINKGO BIOWORKS MEDIA CONTACT:
[email protected]

FREDsense MEDIA INQUIRIES
[email protected]

SOURCE Ginkgo Bioworks