Company’s first full-scale fermentation run reinforces commercial viability for a robust pipeline of Biosynthetic KSMs and APIs
MENLO PARK, Calif., Aug. 25, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Antheia, the pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturer transforming essential medicine supply chains, today announced the successful completion of its first 116,000L scale manufacturing run with a commercially-relevant fermentation titer for its debut product. The company also unveiled its initial product pipeline, which includes thebaine, oripavine, and scopolamine, all of which are KSMs (key starting materials) or APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) for producing critical medicines. Antheia’s pipeline aligns with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization’s Essential Medicines lists and the company’s platform supports growing efforts to improve global access to essential medicines.
Antheia was founded on the belief that synthetic biology can be leveraged to produce highly complex pharmaceutical molecules at commercial scale with greater efficiency than current approaches. Many of today’s pharmaceutical ingredients are reliant on vulnerable, costly, and faltering manufacturing models and as a result, are often in shortage. Antheia’s 116,000L commercial scale run of a highly engineered microbial organism – with 25-30 complex, heterologous biosynthetic steps and more than 20 enzymes – is an industry-first milestone, heralding a new era of efficient, agile, and rapid-response biomanufacturing for KSMs and APIs.
“Our first full-scale fermentation run marks a technological achievement in scaling up products of unprecedented complexity, as well as an important advancement in our commercial efforts. With Antheia, customers can gain greater control and visibility over their pharmaceutical ingredient supply chains,” said Christina Smolke, PhD, CEO and co-founder at Antheia. “It is exciting to see the convergence of our commercial progress with our mission to transform pharmaceutical supply chains for more equitable access to medicines.”
Today’s announcement demonstrates Antheia’s strong scientific and commercial trajectory, and also signals how synthetic biology can – and will – deliver on its promise to revolutionize major industries. Bolstering this move into production is the recent appointment of Antheia’s new head of commercialization, Richard Sherwin, who will lead the company’s global commercial strategy for its strong pipeline of Biosynthetic KSMs and APIs. Antheia’s pipeline covers a wide variety of therapeutic areas, including neurology, respiratory, anti-infective and oncology.
To learn more about Antheia’s products, please reach out to [email protected].
About Antheia
Antheia is the next-generation pharmaceutical ingredient producer transforming essential medicine supply chains to end drug shortages. Using its novel whole-cell engineering approach, Antheia’s biomanufacturing platform enables the reconstruction of biosynthetic pathways of unprecedented complexity in yeast cells and the scaling of fermentation processes to commercial levels. This highly flexible approach enables on-demand, agile, and resilient biomanufacturing of critical pharmaceutical ingredients, replacing legacy approaches that cannot support the needs of modern healthcare. Antheia’s team of scientists and technologists is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. For more information, visit www.antheia.bio.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Mission North for Antheia
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