Nature's Toolbox (NTx) is on a fast track toward commercializing its suite of biotechnologies, and a recently announced partnership on an $18 million government contract could help further those commercialization efforts.
Based in Rio Rancho, NTx is a life sciences and bioinformatics company with a series of mRNA and protein manufacturing technologies. It announced in mid-July that it was named as a partner on a four-year, $18 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract awarded to Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA), a biotech company headquartered in Boston.
Under that contract — which was awarded to "reimagine how to manufacture complex therapeutic proteins," according to a July 19 news release — NTx will provide technology to produce proteins "very quickly" using an in vitro translation method, said Alexander Koglin, Ph.D., president and chief science officer for NTx. That method offers an alternative to producing proteins through fermentation, Koglin told Albuquerque Business First.
"What we provide is for the first time demonstrating that in vitro translation — so basically making living protein outside the living organism — can be done at commercial scale," he said. "This is a huge bonus for us since this basically triggered additional interest elsewhere."
Koglin and James "Jamie" Coffin, Ph.D., who was named as NTx's new CEO in early March of this year, said a few "very large to large" pharmaceutical companies have reached out to NTx since it was named as a partner under the DARPA contract. The executives didn't disclose the names of any of those companies.
Thanks to working under the contract and to increased commercial interest, Coffin said NTx is "going to be in hyper growth mode." That includes a glut of new hires; Coffin said that NTx could grow to over 100 employees over the next year, from just over 40 now.
Physical expansion is part of that growth, as well. Coffin said the company is building a 2,000-square-foot warehouse behind its existing facility at 7701 Innovation Way NE in Rio Rancho to separate its manufacturing and research and development areas. That expansion would "basically double" NTx's existing physical footprint and "have significant impact on the revenue side of the company," Koglin, the company's president and chief science officer, said. He didn't provide any projected revenue figures.
While announcements about new commercial development and expansion could come before the end of the year, Koglin said demonstrating NTx's technological capabilities through the DARPA contract is a "major milestone" for the company's commercialization efforts, and for the bioscience industry in general.
"Basically, in vitro production of critical proteins for the pharmaceutical industry for pandemic response is absolutely feasible," he said. "I expect no less than a paradigm shift [in] how we consider proteins being made within the next three years."
Koglin, under the contract, is part of a team led by Ginkgo Bioworks that includes representatives from Imperial College London and Michael Feldhaus, a former executive at New Hampshire biotech company Adimab. NTx didn't disclose how much of the up to $18 million awarded under the contract it will receive for its work.
