Today, Ginkgo Bioworks announced its new strategic collaboration with Solvay, a science company whose technologies bring benefits to many aspects of daily life. Through this multi-year collaboration, we’ll show Solvay how the power of synthetic biology can enable their development of more sustainable chemicals and materials, and contribute to the transition towards environmentally-friendly solutions. This development process will first focus on new sustainable biopolymers, which could tangibly impact a breadth of markets, from home and personal care to agriculture and food.

 

As part of this partnership, Solvay will also acquire a Ginkgo (formerly Zymergen) laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This acquisition will expand Solvay’s research and innovation (R&I) footprint in the US, provide Solvay access to new talents, and establish a sustainable growth base in synthetic biology in one the most important biotech hubs in the world, accelerating the company’s biotech development plan.

 

With this strategic collaboration and expansion, Solvay will be able to integrate deep competencies in bioinformatics, data science, strain engineering, biocatalysis and fermentation processes. Taking advantage of its location in a biotech talent pool and proximity to facilities and customers in the US, Solvay intends to turn this lab into a cornerstone of its growth strategy in renewable materials and biotechnology.

 

“We’re thrilled to make this important investment and to partner with Ginkgo Bioworks on an exciting project to develop sustainable chemicals and materials, allowing us to provide innovative biotechnologies to new markets,” said Solvay CEO Ilham Kadri. “Biotech is the future and this step is an important milestone for our growth platform. We expect to leverage our new presence in the Boston area to step up and accelerate our offerings in this field.”

 

We’re so excited to welcome Solvay to our platform and to the Boston area at such a pivotal growth period for both of our companies. In our case, it’s fantastic to be able to integrate platform capabilities from Zymergen and make them accessible to our partners so quickly. Synthetic biology can help companies across a wide breadth of markets reach their environmental and economic goals at the same time, and it’s thrilling to work with a partner taking such a big swing at sustainability.