Twist Bioscience and bitBiome Announce Strategic Collaboration and First Offering to Deliver One-of-a-Kind Enzymes for Biocatalysis

Published 4 months ago via Business Wire

Twist Bioscience Corporation (Nasdaq: TWST), a company enabling customers to succeed through its offering of high-quality synthetic DNA using its silicon platform, and bitBiome Inc., a biotechnology company unlocking the potential of our planet’s microbes to power the future of the bioeconomy, today announced the launch of a joint Transaminase Enzyme Screening Kit, which is a curated collection of forty-eight highly diverse transaminase enzymes ready for in-house screening and evaluation.

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Transaminase enzymes catalyze the transfer of an amine group from an amine donor. Importantly, transaminases have emerged as an exciting option for the synthesis of chiral amines, valuable building blocks for the pharmaceutical industry, offering a potential “green alternative” to conventional synthesis.

Pairing Twist Bioscience’s high-capacity synthesis technology with bitBiome’s one-of-a-kind proprietary database (bit-GEM) of over two billion microbe sequences enabled the creation of the innovative Transaminase Enzyme Screening Kit. This kit features a unique set of transaminases that can be used by labs and pharmaceutical companies to efficiently implement improved enzymes for biocatalysis, particularly for the synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Biocatalysis provides a viable alternative to conventional chemically synthesized processes used in the manufacturing of small molecule pharmaceuticals and other key ingredients.

“We are delighted to work with Twist Bioscience to bring the wealth of relevant sequences in our bit-GEM database to not only the biocatalysis community but also the global biomanufacturing community,” said Yuji Suzuki, CEO of bitBiome. “Our companies have complementary strengths, with our database representing a highly diverse collection of sequences unknown to the public domain, and Twist’s capability of making large-scale DNA synthesis possible. We look forward to providing new and innovative solutions for the industry.”

“By mining bitBiome’s massive database and by identifying and synthesizing the enzymes that would be most useful in creating active pharmaceutical ingredients, we can provide our and bitBiome’s customers with a new and robust approach to enzyme engineering and development specific to biocatalysis,” said Emily Leproust, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Twist Bioscience. “This screening kit builds on our work in DNA synthesis where our customers provide us with sequences and we quickly deliver products. We envision a complementary service wherein customers can not only order specific sequences but also leverage our combined capabilities to identify novel enzymes and protein molecules.”

About Twist Bioscience Corporation

Twist Bioscience is a leading and rapidly growing synthetic biology and genomics company that has developed a disruptive DNA synthesis platform to industrialize the engineering of biology. The core of the platform is a proprietary technology that pioneers a new method of manufacturing synthetic DNA by “writing” DNA on a silicon chip. Twist is leveraging its unique technology to manufacture a broad range of synthetic DNA-based products, including synthetic genes, tools for next-generation sequencing (NGS) preparation, and antibody libraries for drug discovery and development. Twist is also pursuing longer-term opportunities in digital data storage in DNA and biologics drug discovery. Twist makes products for use across many industries including healthcare, industrial chemicals, agriculture, and academic research.

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About bitBiome, Inc.

bitBiome is a biotechnology company unlocking the full potential of our planet’s microbes to power the future of the bioeconomy. bitBiome’s platform is built on their proprietary single-cell microbial genome analysis technology, bit-MAP ®, which has enabled the creation of bit-GEM: an extensive and groundbreakingly diverse microbial database of over 2 billion sequences, sourced primarily from environmental samples and containing sequences not present in public databases. Leveraging their expertise in bioinformatics and machine learning, the company also offers a comprehensive enzyme discovery and engineering platform, bit-QED, which encompasses the identification, assessment, and modification of enzymes through wet lab evaluation and directed evolution. bitBiome is committed to improving existing biomanufacturing industries and creating new ones by delivering sequences and enzymes that cannot be found anywhere else. To learn more about bitBiome’s platform and services, visit www.bitbiome.bio.

Twist Bioscience Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained herein are forward-looking statements reflecting the current beliefs and expectations of management made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including but not limited to, statements regarding the viability of this product or others as an alternative to conventional chemically synthesized processes used in the manufacturing of small molecule pharmaceuticals, our ability to identify and synthesize the enzymes most useful in creating active pharmaceutical ingredients as well as our ability to provide complementary services for novel enzyme and protein discovery. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that may cause Twist Bioscience’s actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the ability to achieve the expected benefits of Twist Bioscience’s restructuring activities and reduced investments in DNA data storage; the ability to attract new customers and retain and grow sales from existing customers; the ability of Twist Bioscience to achieve sufficient revenue to achieve or maintain positive cash flow from operations or profitability in any given period; risks and uncertainties of rapidly changing technologies and extensive competition in synthetic biology that could make the products Twist Bioscience is developing obsolete or non-competitive; uncertainties of the retention of significant customers; the ability of Twist Bioscience to successfully integrate acquired companies and to achieve expected benefits from acquisitions; supply chain and other disruptions; risks of third party claims alleging infringement of patents and proprietary rights or seeking to invalidate Twist Bioscience’s patents or proprietary rights; and the risk that Twist Bioscience’s proprietary rights may be insufficient to protect its technologies. For a description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to Twist Bioscience’s business in general, see Twist Bioscience’s risk factors set forth in Twist Bioscience’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on November 21, 2023 and subsequent filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof, and Twist Bioscience specifically disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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