The BioMaP-Consortium awarded a $7.5 million, two-year project award to Capra Biosciences to demonstrate the ability of its platform to rapidly scale and manufacture biologically derived small molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Capra has used its biofilm-forming microbes and proprietary bioreactors to transform low-cost feedstocks into a variety of chemicals, including their first commercial product, retinol.
Under this new project agreement, Capra will leverage its bioreactor platform to demonstrate the manufacture of three active pharmaceutical ingredients, to be selected in cooperation with the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“Biomanufacturing has the potential to manufacture many of the chemicals we use today not only more sustainably, but also where and when we need them. This is an extraordinary opportunity to apply the Capra platform to the important issue of pharmaceutical ingredient shortages,” said Elizabeth Onderko, Capra’s cofounder and CEO.
Successfully creating the pharmaceutical ingredients using a common platform will further illustrate the potential of Capra’s technology to be easily tailored to create a broad spectrum of molecules in a highly scalable manner, added Onderko.
Leveraging AI and modeling for faster manufacturing
To address the challenge of rapidly onboarding new products and scaling them, Capra brought together a team of companies, including Next Rung Technology, according to Onderko, who added that the team’s expertise spans AI modeling, bioprocess scaleup, and biomanufacturing. The team will leverage AI design tools to rapidly design and onboard each of the APIs, as well as predict their viability and scalability before production begins, she noted.
Using Capra’s modular bioreactors, together with these models, the team aims to demonstrate production of three target APIs at pilot scale. A strength of biomanufacturing is that the same hardware can be used to rapidly switch between different pharmaceutical ingredients or even other products, pointed out Onderko.
“With the success of this project, Capra will have a template for rapidly scaling ingredients for pharmaceuticals as well as other applications quickly and cost effectively using their modular platform and locally sourced raw materials,” she said.
