Boston, MA 1/20/17—Ginkgo Bioworks, a technology platform company, has acquired gene synthesis firm Gen9. Gen9 supplies long fragments of synthetic DNA. Financial details were not disclosed. The acquisition includes Gen9’s manufacturing platform and IP, as well as the operations and R&D teams. “Having Gen9’s synthesis and assembly technology available to our customers is a valuable addition to our foundries, allowing us to further speed up the process of organism design,” commented Gingko Bioworks Cofounder and CEO Jason Kelly. Gen9’s facilities will become Gingko Bioworks’ BioFab manufacturing platform. Gingko Bioworks was Gen9’s largest customer. 

Nine Gen9 employees will join Gingko Bioworks. The Boston Globe reported this month that Gen9 laid off employees in December after failing to raise new funding and having manufacturing issues. Gen9 specializes in the automated production of DNA constructs, providing custom gene synthesis, synthetic DNA libraries, and synthetic DNA for research and manufacturing applications. Gingko Bioworks designs and manufactures custom products for industrial and consumer applications, such as fragrance, flavor and food. Gingko Bioworks announced last summer plans to purchase 300 million base pairs of DNA from Gen9.

A Ginkgo Bioworks spokesperson told IBO that the company does not plan to continue outside sales of Gen9 products but will continue service for some existing strategic customers. In 2013, Agilent Technologies announced a $21 million investment in Gen9 (see IBO 8/15/13) and provided Gen9 with access to its oligonucleotide synthesis technology. Asked about the companies’ continuing relationship, Ginkgo Bioworks provided IBO with a statement from Jacob Thaysen, president of Agilent’s Diagnostics and Genomics Group: “Agilent oligonucleotide libraries have been the starting material from which all Gen9 products are derived. We remain highly optimistic about the potential of gene synthesis, and we will look at investment in any strategic partners that can aid Agilent in this business.”