General
No. EV Biotech is not a compound manufacturer. Our final product is the optimized strain, which is handed over to the client. We can provide support service to the client to produce the product at a compound manufacturing organisation but we are not manufacturers ourselves.
The compounds that are produced by our strains are natural and GMO-free, according to the EC No. 1334/2008 regulation of the European parliament for food additives and the COSMOS standard for cosmetics. The products are GMO derived as our strains are genetically modified.
Metabolic modelling is a young technology, for which only recently sufficient computational power has become available. Big players would require a disproportionate amount of investment to launch a functional modelling department. We are here to serve them. Our small yet multidisciplinary team has all necessary knowledge and the benefit of direct contact and easy collaboration between wet and dry lab.
We engineer microbial strains that grow on a minimum of carbon sources needed to produce the highest compound yield, resulting in minimal waste. Our virtual laboratory saves time, resources and energy, which makes our strain development process significantly more sustainable than the commonly used high-throughput, trial-and-error methods. Our processes are virtually carbon neutral, which sharply contrasts with the huge carbon footprint of chemical synthesis. We get our electricity from renewable sources and heat from waste streams of nearby industry.
All our data are stored in closed systems. We provide a data management plan as part of the confidentiality agreement. Our CTO also acts as our digital safety officer and she is happy to answer questions about specific concerns.
The Process
The whole spectrum from whole organism flux balance analyses to protein engineering using molecular dynamics. Our modelling team is on top of the latest developments and will readily implement any new type of digital experiment that becomes available. New tools and analysis techniques are continously developed in-house to strenghten and expand our pipeline and services.
If this happens, the computer model needs to be updated for this specific project. The laboratory results will be verified, repeated and, when consistent, added to the model. Consequently, further modelling predictions will be more accurate. This is actually an indispensable part of the work and not only done when the results do not match. All wet lab data are fed into the digital test system for further model optimization.
If the laboratory work takes longer than estimated due to unforeseen problems in the development, we will report this to our partner and discuss with them how to proceed.
The predictions are not 100% reliable, but can exclude the vast majority of unsuccessful cases. Moreover, our digital test system is self-learning. The data generated by the subsequent wet lab work are fed back into the system and are used for further model optimization.
EV Biotech’s capabilities
Our intake assessment includes a complexity rating, based on which we give a time frame. Roughly speaking, this process takes 6 to 24 months.
The computational modelling predicts which microorganism, genetic modifications and carbon sources will give the highest compound yield and does so at a speed that is impossible to match by traditional trial-and-error lab experiments. We use these predictions as our starting point for strain development in the laboratory. The experimental data that we generate are fed back into the computer model to improve and correct the initial model and further optimize the MCF.
The computational model predicts the microorganism that gives the maximum theoretical yield in our available hosts. Our strain engineers then create this microorganism in the laboratory. If our partner has a preferred host, we will include this organism in our modelling and adjust our process if feasible.
After completion
We deliver the MCF with customized growth protocol on lab scale. The next step is production on pilot scale. Depending on the conditions of the partnership, EV Biotech can organize this in collaboration with one of our preferred partners. For upscaling from pilot to full production we offer consultancy on a fee-for-service basis.
No, EV biotech does not produce the target compounds in industrial quantities. The final production is outsourced to the industrial partner.
We do not perform the process itself, but we can provide support service depending on the conditions of the partnership.
We offer fee-for-service support on problem analysis, including check of the genetic consistency of the MCF.
