Enabling a paradigm-shift in chemical production

For the first time in history, we now have the tools and insight to control and optimize nature’s biological processes, enabling us to replace traditional chemical production methods with a sustainable and non-polluting alternative: Exozymes.

Exozymes are isolated enzymes engineered to thrive outside living cells and work in concert to carry out biochemical transformations. This approach eliminates the complexities of cellular metabolism, enabling higher control over reaction conditions, reducing byproduct formation, and achieving near-theoretical yields.

Building on more than a decade of expertise in enzyme and exozyme optimization, we leverage artificial intelligence, high-quality enzyme data generation, and rational design optimization in our state-of-the-art lab to design, test, and commercially scale exozyme biosolutions.

In essence, we have successfully combined the best of biology and chemistry to produce new, essential, and valuable chemicals.

Key features and advantages of exozymes include

  1. Eliminating Cellular Constraints
    Exozymes operate independently of cellular processes, avoiding issues such as competition with metabolic pathways, product toxicity to cells, and limitations from cellular viability.

  2. Modular and Customizable Design
    Pathways using exozymes can be designed modularly, incorporating only the necessary components to achieve a specific transformation. This flexibility allows for optimization of reaction conditions and targeted product synthesis.

  3. Efficient Cofactor Recycling
    Systems employing exozymes integrate our innovative methods for balancing cofactors, including molecular purge valves, rheostats, and sacrificial substrates to maintain energy and redox balance.

  4. Applications Across Industries
    Exozymes have demonstrated excellent use-cases across diverse areas including active pharmaceutical ingredients for medicines, nutraceuticals, as well as biofuels.

  5. Scalability and Sustainability
    By using robust, stable exozymes and circumventing the need for living systems, exozymes support long-term, cost-effective, scalable, and sustainable biomanufacturing processes.

Explaining our technology

Our CEO, Michael Heltzen, explains the difference between enzymes and exozymes, to get an undersstanding of our our technology.

Inspired by four recent Nobel Prizes

 

 

 

Inspired by insights from no less than four recent Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, our technological platform represents the pinnacle of biomanufacturing innovation. A vision so bold as ours can’t be completed without multiple technological advancements, which the founders and our core teams have achieved over the last decade.

This is why we call our platform a paradigm shift: From polluting and toxic petrochemicals to sustainable chemical production using nature’s own processes. Simply a new and sustainable way to make chemicals. Phrased like this, it sounds simple – but it certainly isn’t.

From design to production

Here’s a breakdown of the exozyme process across three overall phases.

  1. 1: Engineering Enhanced Enzymes to Become Exozymes
    To create exozymes, enzymes are engineered to function efficiently outside cells. This involves using in-house expertise and artificial intelligence to design modifications that improve their stability, activity, and resistance to industrial conditions like high temperatures or variable pH. AI tools predict beneficial mutations, which are tested iteratively in the lab. The result is a set of highly robust enzymes tailored for cell-free systems.

  2. 2: Lab Preparation: Expressing and Purifying Exozymes
    Engineered exozymes are expressed in microbial hosts such as E.coli or yeast and then purified using techniques like chromatography. These steps ensure high purity and stability, while methods such as immobilization or stabilizer additives may be used to enhance performance. The final product is a batch of scalable, ready-to-use exozymes.

  3. 3: Target Production
    In the bioreactor, exozymes convert feedstock, such as glucose, into valuable products under carefully controlled conditions. Parameters like temperature and pH are optimized for enzyme efficiency, while integrated systems recycle cofactors to sustain the reactions. The process achieves continuous, high-yield production of bio-based chemicals, bypassing the limitations of cell-based methods.
Biochemistry Workflow

Scientifically validated

Our exozyme approach is validated by multiple  publications in peer-reviewed high-impact journals.

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Issued patents

Synthetic biochemistry molecular purge valve module that maintain co-factor balance

See patent

Cell-free metabolic pathway for glucose metabolism with a molecular purge valve

See patent

Molecular rheostat for cofactor balance

See patent

Biosynthetic platform for the production of cannabinoids and other prenylated compounds

See patent

Prenyltransferase variants with increased thermostability

See patent

Biosynthesis of cyclolavandulyl derivatives of aromatic compounds

See patent

Recombinant polypeptides with berberine bridge enzyme activity useful for the biosynthesis of cannabinoids

See patent

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