Winter of great content: Sir Greg joins board as Constructive Bio takes funding haul to $75m

The round was led by Ahren, OMX Ventures and Paladin Capital Group with participation from Fine Structure Ventures, +ND Capital and Abcam-founder Jonathan Milner.

The Series A investment will be used to further develop Constructive Bio’s groundbreaking technology that writes genomes from scratch and creates entirely new biomolecules.

Nobel Prize winner and biotech entrepreneur Sir Gregory Winter will join the board as representative of Ahren, bringing his world-leading expertise and experience in the sector to support the company’s growth.

Ola Wlodek, CEO at Constructive Bio, said: “Synthetic genomics is redefining how we harness biology. Our suite of proprietary technologies and incomparable team allows us to build novel materials and products that will revolutionise drug manufacturing and discovery.

“This financing will enable us to accelerate bringing breakthrough products and platforms to market, which will grow our revenue through existing and new paths, ranging from exciting therapeutics to sustainable biomaterials. We see the future of biology, and we're leading the charge.”

Constructive Bio boasts that it has the unique capacity to produce fully programmable molecules with unprecedented fidelity, specificity, and scalability.

Through genome synthesis, the company is able to write entire custom genomes with full control of the genetic sequence and code. By engineering protein translation, it can create and biomanufacture entirely new molecules with novel properties and functions.

The company is rapidly advancing its technologies to develop new therapeutics and synthesise these and existing pharmaceuticals at scale.

Since launching in 2022, it has unlocked the commercial potential of its proprietary platforms by optimising its synthetic organisms and demonstrating the scalable production of multi-functionalised proteins at commercial titres.

Constructive Bio now has the capacity to bring new products and manufacturing methods to sectors including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, materials and consumer goods.

Its proprietary technology is built on research carried out at the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge by company founder Professor Jason Chin, who in 2019 synthesised the entire genome of the bacterium E. coli – the first synthetic strain created for industrial use.

With this research as the cornerstone of its approach, Constructive Bio is uniquely able to expand the genetic code of cells to incorporate multiple non-canonical amino acids into a single molecule.

Professor Chin, also CSO, said: “Constructive Bio is the only company that can turn living cells into sustainable biofactories in which we can programme the sequence, composition and chemistry of proteins, and new biopolymers.

“We have the best technology and an unmatched synergy across our three foundational platforms: deeply recoded synthetic genomes, engineered cellular machinery, and new chemistry.

“With additional funding we are accelerating genome synthesis and design from years to days, more rapidly engineering cells’ machinery to make molecules with extra building blocks, and expanding the chemistry we can programme into molecules.”

Sir Gregory Winter, Ahren Science Partner and board member of Constructive Bio, commented: “With this investment, we aim to develop Constructive Bio’s technology to deliver biomanufacturing at scale. By providing a biological, cost-effective production process, we can help overcome shortfalls in global supplies of therapeutic peptides and proteins such as semaglutide.”