An industrial biotech striving to make consumer products more sustainable has relocated from New York to Research Triangle Park.
Curie Co. develops enzymes that can replace the petrochemical-based preservatives used in personal care products. The move enables Curie to scale its biomanufacturing operations as the company prepares to launch its first commercial product within the next 12 months.
"There's really nowhere better in this country to focus on biomanufacturing, in my view, than Research Triangle Park," said Curie CEO Erika Milczek. "There's a lot of great talent in the area, access to universities, access to, quite frankly, manufacturing talent, because there's so much manufacturing here."
Milczek, who previously worked at the pharma giant Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK), founded Curie in 2017 in response to regulatory and commercial action taken against certain petrochemicals used as preservatives in products. This includes government agencies banning certain chemicals, and companies, such as Walmart (NYSE: WMT) and Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), implementing policies to phase out the use of these preservatives.
"We saw all of this pressing regulation and retailer brands, and quite frankly, consumer awareness, and we decided to build something better," Milczek said.
Before moving to the Triangle, the company operated within a Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) startup accelerator in New York, where it developed an early proof of concept and then minimum viable products that it could test with partners in beta trials. It was at this point that the company began receiving a level of interest from companies dealing in consumer packaged goods that required Curie to further develop its manufacturing process, Milczek said.
The company, which has a headcount between 25 to 30 employees, is leasing office and lab space at 6 Davis Drive in RTP. Over the next 12 months, the company plans to add another five to 10 employees, filling various technical and nontechnical roles.
Along with the move to North Carolina, Curie brought on Alan Berry as the company's chief technology officer. Prior to joining Curie, Berry spent about 15 years with the Danish biotech Novozymes, which has operations in RTP and its North American headquarters in Franklin.
Curie plans to commercialize its first product within the next 12 months. While the company has manufacturing space in RTP, it will rely on working with contract manufacturers for the commercial-stage production.
The company's first product is an antifungal enzyme intended to replace the preservatives companies add to personal care products like body wash, hand soap and shampoo. Curie plans to follow it with an antibacterial product for personal care products. After that, Milczek said, the company will move into different spaces, like household and industrial cleaning products.
After last raising money in 2020, Curie has a cash runway for the next 12 to 18 months. The company in January filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on a roughly $12.1 million raise.
Milczek anticipates that Curie will experience further growth after its future series B round, which will support the company's move into different industries.
"We're looking to replace legacy petrochemical preservatives," Milczek said. "Really, that's about ushering out classic fossil fuel based chemicals and moving in more sustainable ingredients."