Verdezyne Identifies First Product
Bruce V. Bigelow When I profiled Verdezyne in November, the Carlsbad, CA-based startup didn’t want to disclose the first feedstock chemical it is aiming to displace by using genetically engineered...
View ArticleDNA Synthesis for Beginners: Ginkgo BioWorks Sells the Scissors and Glue
Erin Kutz The founders of Boston-based Ginkgo BioWorks think that assembling synthetic biological systems shouldn’t just be for experienced researchers. So they put together a kit that consists of the...
View ArticleDavid Berry of Flagship Ventures on Funding Advice, Investment Themes, Trends...
Gregory T. Huang A rising star of the Boston-area venture capital scene is in Seattle today. He’s David Berry, a partner with Flagship Ventures, and he’s speaking on a panel tonight that will tackle a...
View ArticleLife Tech Buys Majority of Geneart
Luke Timmerman Life Technologies, the Carlsbad, CA-based company that makes instruments and lab supplies for biologists, said today it has acquired a 74 percent ownership stake in Germany-based...
View ArticleFeds’ Sequenom Probe Breaks Into the Open, Life Technologies Moves Into...
Bruce V. Bigelow The big news came with a guilty plea by Sequenom’s former R&D chief, but it’s just the beginning. In pleading guilty, Elizabeth Dragon agreed to cooperate with a continuing...
View ArticleLS9, Creator of Synthetic Microbes to Make Biofuel, Edges Toward Moment of Truth
Luke Timmerman Every hot startup has to put up or shut up at some point. This is when it’s time to stop talking about the gee-whiz founding idea and scientific progress. It’s the point when a company...
View ArticleAmyris Raises $85 Million in IPO
Wade Roush Emeryville, CA-based Amyris Biotechnologies is unusual in several respects. One of the synthetic biology company’s first big projects, back in 2005, was a non-profit venture with the Bill...
View ArticleLife Technologies’ Recent Deals Reflect $100M Initiative in Synthetic Biology
Bruce V. Bigelow Back on May 28th, Carlsbad, CA-based Life Technologies (NASDAQ: LIFE) said it had agreed to pay approximately $47 million in cash to acquire a 74 percent stake in Geneart, a German...
View ArticleVenter Institute, Synthetic Genomics Form Vaccine Company, Partner With Novartis
Bruce V. Bigelow San Diego’s Synthetic Genomics, co-founded by human genome pioneer J. Craig Venter, and the nonprofit J. Craig Venter Institute, are forming a new company called Synthetic Genomics...
View ArticleCraig Venter to NASA: Think About Engineering Your Astronauts
Deborah Gage What is the right genetic profile for an astronaut—someone who’s going to spend months living on the moon, or years traveling to an asteroid or Mars? Craig Venter has an answer. The...
View ArticleNovophage Nets $5.7M from Flybridge, Others
Gregory T. Huang Boston-based Novophage has raised $5.7 million in a Series A financing round led by Flybridge Capital Partners. Founder Collective, Boston University, and strategic investors Chevron...
View ArticleBacteria to Do Our Bidding
Matthew O'Donnell [Editor's note: We asked a group of Xconomists to answer the following question: "If you could patent one thing, what would it be?"] Broad claims covering delivery of therapeutics...
View ArticleComputing and-Chinese
Nathan Myhrvold My initial response to this question was, “Chinese!” I was only half joking. English is the most popular second language in the world and in our increasingly connected world, the...
View ArticleStealthy Gen9 Rolls Out BioFab for Large-Scale Gene Manufacturing
Arlene Weintraub For the past three years, Cambridge, MA-based Gen9 has been quietly building something that its founders believe has been sorely lacking in biotech: an affordable and efficient way to...
View ArticleZiopharm Awaits Cancer Drug Data as Wall Street Withholds Judgment
Arlene Weintraub Jonathan Lewis, the CEO of New York-based Ziopharm (NASDAQ: ZIOP), was stunned earlier this year when he ran across a commercial on YouTube produced by his company’s biggest investor,...
View ArticleSynthetic Genomics Gets Rights to Key Genome-Building Technology
Bruce V. Bigelow Synthetic Genomics, the San Diego startup developing biofuels, industrial chemicals, sustainable animal feed, and other genetically engineered products, says it has acquired worldwide...
View ArticleIn San Diego Talk, Venter Says Biofuels ‘Dead’ Without Carbon Policy
Bruce V. Bigelow Blunt to the bone, human genome pioneer J. Craig Venter flatly declared in San Diego this week that algae-based biofuels “are just dead” unless the federal government sets an...
View ArticleZiopharm Goes Lean to Stretch Funds for New Synthetic Biology Focus
Bernadette Tansey New York-based Ziopharm Oncology (NASDAQ: ZIOP), which once seemed on the runway toward its first product approval for a relatively conventional cancer drug, is now buying itself...
View ArticleGen9, Synthetic Biology Startup, Snags $21M from Agilent
Luke Timmerman [Updated: 1:15 pm ET] Scientists have been able to order up custom-synthesized genes on demand for quite a few years now. But if synthetic biology is going to move beyond small lab...
View ArticleSan Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Optimer, Ambit, AnaptysBio, & More
Bruce V. Bigelow [Clarification 5/17/13, 2:05 pm. See below.] Right on the same line with the original lede so you don’t waste space on a carriage return…Antibody drugs seemed to be the topic of the...
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