- This first milestone has made the full color palette of the
yellow-to-purple spectrum accessible for Phytolon's food
colors and has further established a unique and cost-efficient
offering for the food industry
- Phytolon's natural betalain pigments, produced through
fermentation-based technologies, offer safe, sustainable
alternatives to synthetic dyes, addressing growing regulatory
concerns and consumer demand for natural products
- Ginkgo Natural Product Services played a crucial role in
enhancing the efficiency of Phytolon's yeast strains, ensuring the
consistent and robust production of sustainable food colors via two
producing strains
YOKNE'AM ILLIT, Israel and BOSTON, Jan. 31,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Phytolon, a biotechnology
company that offers natural food colors via fermentation-based
technologies, and Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA), which is building
the leading platform for cell programming and biosecurity, today
announced the successful completion of the first development
milestone of their multi-product collaboration to produce natural
food colors and the resulting distribution of an equity milestone
to Ginkgo.
Ginkgo and Phytolon's partnership, which began in February 2022, aims to produce vibrant betalain
pigments spanning the entire yellow-to-purple spectrum using cell
engineering. The successful completion of the project's first
milestone unlocks the commercial potential of Phytolon's
yellow-to-purple palette and further establishes this broad and
cost-efficient offering to its clients. By leveraging Ginkgo
Natural Product Services, Phytolon has significantly improved the
efficiency of its yeast strains to generate these vibrant,
sustainable colors and offer cost-efficient replacements to
artificial dyes.
Phytolon's naturally produced betalain pigments can be used
throughout the food industry as safe, sustainable, and viable
alternatives to synthetic dyes, which are facing increased scrutiny
and bans. As governments continue to intensify regulations on
synthetic dyes, consumers will increasingly seek out more
sustainable and nature-derived products. By partnering with Ginkgo,
Phytolon is in a strong position to scale their robust array of
food colorants for the global market. Following the successful
completion of the partnership's first milestone, Phytolon soon
expects to bring the full color palette enabled by these two new
strains to market. Ginkgo and Phytolon will continue to work
together under their existing agreement toward achieving additional
milestones that further increase production efficiency.
"We are so excited to reach this key milestone with our partner,
Ginkgo Bioworks. This achievement puts our colors at the forefront
to efficiently replace artificial dyes in our food and create a
healthy and sustainable world," said Tal
Zeltzer, co-founder and CTO of Phytolon. "Our clients are
now able to explore high-performing natural colors in their brands,
covering the full range from purple to pink, red, orange, and
yellow shades."
"We are thrilled to see our collaboration with Phytolon
accelerate, and we're proud to be a driving force behind the
realization of this milestone and the R&D breakthroughs it
represents," said Kevin Madden,
Senior Vice President of Commercialization at Ginkgo Bioworks.
"Ginkgo Natural Product Services have enabled Phytolon's products
to be competitive worldwide and create a broader palette of options
for the industry. We're happy to be able to provide innovators like
Phytolon with our services and give access to our codebase to
accelerate their product development. As we celebrate this success,
we look forward to sustaining this momentum to further enhance the
performance of Phytolon's products."
Learn more about Ginkgo Natural Product Services at
https://www.ginkgobioworks.com/offerings/natural-products-services/.
And read Ginkgo's whitepaper on the Bioproduction of Aromatic
Molecules at
https://www.ginkgobioworks.com/offerings/whitepaper-bioproduction-of-aromatic-molecules/.
About Ginkgo Bioworks
Ginkgo Bioworks is the leading horizontal platform for cell
programming, providing flexible, end-to-end services that solve
challenges for organizations across diverse markets, from food and
agriculture to pharmaceuticals to industrial and specialty
chemicals. Ginkgo's biosecurity and public health unit, Concentric
by Ginkgo, is building global infrastructure for biosecurity to
empower governments, communities, and public health leaders to
prevent, detect and respond to a wide variety of biological
threats. For more information, visit ginkgobioworks.com and
concentricbyginkgo.com, read our blog, or follow us on social
media channels such as X (formerly known as Twitter) (@Ginkgo and
@ConcentricByGBW), Instagram (@GinkgoBioworks and
@ConcentricByGinkgo), Threads (@GinkgoBioworks)
or LinkedIn.
About Phytolon
Phytolon offers a game-changing
solution for natural food coloring to the food industry, by
leveraging its fermentation-based technology to produce healthy,
cost-efficient, and sustainable colors in a wide range of shades.
Phytolon has established its capabilities toward product
commercialization in the United
States by meeting central milestones and with respect to
regulation, worldwide distribution, and contract manufacturing. To
explore our unique offering, visit phytolon.com and follow us on
LinkedIn.
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 capabilities and potential success 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) volatility in the price of Ginkgo's securities 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, and changes
in laws and regulations affecting Ginkgo's business, (ii) the
ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other
expectations, and to identify and realize additional business
opportunities, (iii) the risk of downturns in demand for products
using synthetic biology, (iv) the uncertainty regarding the demand
for passive monitoring programs and biosecurity services, (v)
changes to the biosecurity industry, including due to advancements
in technology, emerging competition and evolution in industry
demands, standards and regulations, (vi) our ability to realize the
expected benefits of merger and acquisition transactions, (vii) the
outcome of any legal proceedings against Ginkgo, including as a
result of recent acquisitions, (viii) our ability to realize the
expected benefits from and the success of our Foundry platform
programs, (ix) our ability to successfully develop engineered
cells, bioprocesses, data packages or other deliverables, and (x)
the product development or commercialization success of our
customers. 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 quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on November 8, 2023 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.
PHYTOLON CONTACT:
info@phytolon.com
GINKGO BIOWORKS INVESTOR
CONTACT:
investors@ginkgobioworks.com
GINKGO BIOWORKS MEDIA
CONTACT:
press@ginkgobioworks.com
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