Scientific Bioprocessing, Inc. Joins Biomanufacturing – Manufacturing Design Ecosystem (BioMADE)
Scientific Bioprocessing, Inc. (SBI) announced it has joined BioMADE, a Manufacturing USAⓇ institute located in St. Paul, Minnesota on the University of Minnesota’s main campus.
SBI’s new BioMADE membership is its third partnership with Manufacturing USA; SBI is also a member of the biofabUSA/Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) and the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Pharmaceuticals, better known as NIIMBL.
BioMADE launched in April 2021 thanks to the efforts of hundreds of organizations representing a broad swath of academia, the biopharmaceutical industry, and U.S federal government entities. The new institute has received approximately $90M in funding from the U.S. federal government and nearly twice that amount from the private sector.
“We’re here today to try to do something incredible. Bioindustrial manufacturing has an opportunity to impact all sectors of the economy and all areas of society and only by working together are we able to do this,” stated BioMADE’s CEO Doug Friedman at the organization’s recent virtual launch event.
“The mission of BioMADE is to enable domestic bioindustrial manufacturing at all scales, develop technologies that enhance U.S. bioindustrial competitiveness, de-risk investment in relevant technologies, and expand the biomanufacturing workforce to realize the economic promise of industrial biomanufacturing,” added Friedman.
“We are very excited to be part of the BioMADE community and to be able to contribute to achieving its mission of realizing industrial biomanufacturing’s immense potential,” stated John Moore, President of SBI.
“SBI has a lot to offer the BioMADE consortium, including a growing, talented team and our digitally simplified bioprocessing platform that leverages the power of real-time bioprocessing sensing and powerful Big Data analytical tools. We think this is a great collaborative fit and we look forward to working with other BioMADE members to innovate and advance industrial biomanufacturing,” Moore added.
BioMADE itself is a facilitator that helps the biopharma industry and academia identify their priority needs, develop technology road maps, and then deploy its public-private financing to support select projects. The ultimate goal of these BioMADFE projects is to develop intellectual property that can help increase the probability of a successful leap from lab to commercial scale manufacturing.
The organization’s main location is at the University of Minnesota’s main campus where it will build a 5,000-liter capacity pilot scale biomanufacturing facility that can be used by BioMADE partners. BioMADE expects the pilot scale facility project to begin within the next few years. This first pilot facility is just a start, however; the organization plans on building out a network of labs and facilities across the U.S. to reach the capacity necessary to revolutionize industrial biomanufacturing.
“We understand that we need a national network of pilot and intermediate scale infrastructure ultimately to make a dent in what we want to do with industrial biomanufacturing. We want companies to be able to access infrastructure when they need it, to be able to put products in and fail faster…because the faster you fail the sooner you can move on to the next one and the less investment you make. You have to have the infrastructure to do that,” stated Friedman.
“BioMADE is committed to working with its members to understand what that infrastructure is and how we can make that happen. BioMADE…has power as a facilitator and working together we can impact national networks and national movement…that would be impossible for any individual entity to do on its own,” he added.
SBI’s digitally simplified bioprocessing platform will be a valuable asset for BioMADE and its members. SBI’s suite of powerful tools will help bioindustrial researchers streamline experiments, optimize strain engineering rate, titer and yield (RTY), and glean more powerful insights through the generation and subsequent analysis of more fermentation data. Digitally simplified bioprocessing occurs when the power of automated, leading-edge sensors, tools, and hardware meet powerful, intuitive software, creating a closed-loop system that can fully leverage the power of machine learning and artificial intelligence. SBI’s new digitally simplified platform empowers research scientists to gather more data points in real-time, in any vessel, while tapping into the vast potential of Big Data analytics.
“BioMADE is on a mission to build out greater industrial biomanufacturing capability and innovation across the U.S. This push includes not only creating new facilities accessible to its members, but also improving the efficiency and effectiveness of biomanufacturing processes at all stages of scale up,” added Moore. “Advancing cell culture and bioprocessing success rates and scale up while shortening development timelines and reducing costs is where SBI can potentially make its biggest contributions to BioMADE’s mission.”