Health and wellness industry veteran will lead
the company to scale sustainable bioactives using plant cell
technology instead of
agriculture
BOSTON, Aug. 24,
2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ayana Bio, the plant cell
technology company making sustainable bioactives for consumer
products, today announced the appointment of Frank Jaksch as the company's chief executive
officer. Jaksch founded, was the longtime CEO and presently serves
as Board Chair of health and wellness company ChromaDex,
manufacturer of popular NAD product, Tru Niagen (Nasdaq: CDXC).
![Ayana Bio logo Ayana Bio logo](https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1883862/Ayana_Bio.jpg)
Ayana Bio launched in September
2021 as a Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA) platform venture and
uses proprietary plant cell technology rather than agricultural
production to create plant bioactives for human nutrition, thus
overcoming challenges in the current ingredient supply chain. Some
of the most important and potent health bioactives come from plants
and can only be produced through agriculture or foraging. Climate
volatility and limited natural resources lead to shortcuts on
purity, safety, and sustainability. The health and wellness
consumer products industry needs new forms of production to tap
into sustainable plant bioactives at scale.
"Through my decades in the natural products world, I've
experienced how sourcing botanical ingredients from the wild or
agriculture is not sustainable," said Jaksch. "Supply chain issues
have impacted the botanicals industry for years, and more recently
this year, war and climate change driven weather events have made
it worse. As a result, product quality and consumer trust has
suffered. Plant cell technology will revolutionize how the industry
sources our most beneficial plant bioactives, and Ayana Bio can
make these powerful ingredients more accessible to the
world."
Ayana Bio's plant cell technology product pipeline includes
bioactive compounds from ginseng, berries, cocoa, ginger and other
high-value botanicals. Through its partnership with Ginkgo
Bioworks, Ayana Bio can rapidly analyze its plant cell library to
identify superior cell lines. From there, Ayana Bio grows and
scales the cell lines using standardized cultivation methods in
stainless steel tanks. The technology yields plant biomass with the
identical molecular makeup of the plants found in nature—produced
without the land, irrigation, fertilizers or pesticides required by
agriculture. It also solves the standardization problems plaguing
all agriculture-based supply chains and provides climate change
resilience while protecting natural ecosystems and
biodiversity.
"Synthetic biology has incredible potential to support human and
environmental health, and we're proud to enable innovators like the
Ayana Bio team to launch on Ginkgo's platform. Frank's
understanding of where to apply plant cellular technology to fill
unmet needs in nutrition and complementary medicine coupled with
Ginkgo's platform for cell engineering has the power to transform
the category," said Jason Kelly, CEO
of Ginkgo Bioworks.
"Extraction from agriculture is the past; ingredient cultivation
is the future," said Effendi Leonard, Ayana Bio's co-founder and
chief technology officer. "We rely on plant-derived molecules for
many things in our daily lives, and Ayana Bio's mission to
democratize plant bioactives without agriculture limitation is not
an easy feat. Ayana Bio is uniquely positioned to be able to
leverage the most advanced life science technology, computation,
and cellular cultivation all under one roof to bring Ayana Bio's
mission to fruition."
Jaksch has more than 25 years in life sciences and food,
beverage, and dietary supplement consumer products, building
dietary supplement and food ingredient company ChromaDex from the
ground up and taking the company public on Nasdaq. Jaksch sits
on the board of directors for the Natural Products Association and
is a recognized global expert on natural products chemistry,
longevity and healthspan.
Ayana Bio launched in 2021 with $30
million in Series A funding provided by Viking Global
Investors and Cascade Investment. Ayana Bio was launched in
collaboration with Ginkgo Bioworks, the premier horizontal platform
for cell programming, and with Ferment, the company creation studio
that helps ideate and launch new companies that use cell
programming to support human and environmental health and
well-being.
About Ayana
Bio
Ayana Bio makes sustainable bioactives for health and wellness
products using plant cell cultivation rather than agriculture.
Ayana Bio collaborates with global industry leaders in consumer
packaged goods brands, supplements, specialized nutrition, over the
counter, and traditional medicines to create standardized
bioactives that give consumers confidence in quality and
reliability—while preserving the planet. There's no better way to
produce what comes from plants than using plant cells. For more
information, visit www.ayanabio.com.
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.
About Ferment
Ferment is a company creation studio for the next wave of
synthetic biology product companies. Ferment companies are powered
by Ginkgo Bioworks, the world's most advanced platform for cell
programming. Learn more at www.Ferment.co.
Media
Contacts
Eva Palmer
ayanabio@missionnorth.com
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SOURCE Ayana Bio