Ginkgo Bioworks to go public, raise $2.5 billion via SPAC deal
Ginkgo Bioworks announced an agreement Tuesday that will see it combine with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Soaring Eagle and become a publicly-listed firm. The deal, which follows rumours that surfaced last month, is worth $17.5 billion, including a $15-billion valuation for the synthetic biology innovator and $2.5 billion in primary proceeds.
Launched in 2008, Ginkgo says its so-called "foundry" platform is designed - and continuously refined using robotic automation and data analytics tools - to program cells for customers so they can develop new products. "The magic of biology is that cells run on digital code similar to a computer…[Our] platform makes it easier to program this code," explained Ginkgo CEO Jason Kelly. Highlighting mRNA vaccines as an example, he said "the opportunity to work with programed cells has never been more apparent," with the company recently assisting process optimisation for Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine mRNA-1273.
According to Ginkgo, its platform brings together several life sciences tools, and has accumulated a large and diverse biological "codebase" for organism engineering to facilitate innovation across a range of sectors. Potential applications in pharmaceuticals and biotech include gene and cell therapies, microbiome therapeutics, antibody drug development, and antibiotic discovery and manufacturing. Ginkgo says the capital raised in the SPAC transaction will "dramatically increase" the scale of its platform and accelerate the number of new programmes able to launch on it every year.
'New era' in scientific innovation
Kelly, along with Reshma Shetty, current president and chief operating officer of Ginkgo, will continue to lead the combined company once the transaction closes in the third quarter. The SPAC deal also includes a $775-million private placement, with contributions from deal co-sponsors Eagle Equity Partners and Bellco Capital, led by Arie Belldegrun, who founded Kite Pharma and Allogene Therapeutics. Belldegrun will join Ginkgo's board of directors along with Soaring Eagle CEO Harry Sloan. Current independent directors of Ginkgo, including former Bayer CEO Marijn Dekkers, will also sit on the board of the combined company.
"We are at the beginning of a new era in scientific innovation, where industries which once worked in silos now come together to address challenging issues and improve human health," said Belldegrun, adding "we have seen first-hand [across Bellco's portfolio] how the ability to program cells has started to revolutionise how we treat disease."
Ginkgo said it expects to generate $150 million in revenue this year, representing approximately 96% growth from 2020, with a target of more than $1 billion by 2025. The company received a $1.1-billion loan from the US government last November for COVID-19 testing and production of raw materials for therapies that may help address future pandemics.
May 12th, 2021
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