Oral Delivery of Biologics
Issues with state of the art peptide production and delivery:
- Difficult to synthesize, decreasing scale and increasing cost
- Must be injected to have an effect due to degradation in the stomach
- Not shelf stable under normal conditions
What we are creating to solve these problems is lettuce containing peptides at high levels that are “bio-encapsulated” by cellulose within the cells of the lettuce leaf, protecting the peptide and enabling oral formulations. Our first target leveraging our oral formulation and increased scale of production is agonists for incretin receptors to capture a significant portion of the weight loss market.
Disrupting Fermentation Processes
Production of desirable proteins usually takes place in cells from mammals, yeast, or bacteria grown and cultivated in a process referred to as precision fermentation. These fermenters require large upfront investment and running costs, have poor scalability, and run the risk of contamination with human pathogens. Plant use for protein production, or molecular farming, offers the advantages of lower upfront and running costs, massive scalability, and safety from transmission of human pathogens.
BioDrive’s Platform
Using the vast accumulated knowledge that exists for plant genetics, we can design novel approaches to bio-production that stably increase yields with scaling capacity not achievable by traditional approaches. Using our proprietary approach to genome editing we can achieve more complex modifications of plant systems with lower time, effort, and cost required in generating and maintaining these lines than can be achieved by other plant bio-reactor approaches. The outcome is a streamlined and cost efficient design-build-test cycle tailored for scalable plant based molecular production.
