Guide RNA Synthesis Firm Synthego Gets Investment, Vote Of Doudna Confidence
By Allison Proffitt
January 6, 2017 | This week Synthego, a leading provider of genome engineering solutions, announced a $41 million Series B financing, bringing the company’s total fundraising to $50 million. The latest round includes investment from several venture firms, as well as direct, individual investments from Jennifer Doudna and Jamie Cate.
Technology venture firm 8VC led the round with participation from Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures, Elements Capital, OS Fund, Alexandria Equities, and ZhenFund, as well as Doudna and Cate. Previous investors Founders Fund, co-founded by Peter Thiel, Menlo Ventures, WI Harper Group, and Max Levchin's SciFi VC also participated in the round.
It’s a vote of confidence for a fast-growing company in a hot space steered by a pair of computer engineers.
In August of 2016—with its first $8.3m funding round—the company launched its flagship product: CRISPRevolution, synthetic guide RNAs for CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing. “CRISPR is one of the most promising tools and techniques now,” Synthego CEO and co-founder Paul Dabrowski told Bio-IT World. “Now there’s a frontier for writing information back into cells and modifying the cells.”
Synthego ships kits of synthetic RNA, mostly custom developed for customers. Dabrowski reports editing rates of “70%, 80%, 90% pretty consistently. Whereas, if you use other techniques for doing CRISPR, you may be stuck at 10%, 20%, 30% editing rates,” he said. Synthego kits are also cheaper, the company says, and save money. They reduce costs by 80%, and speed up turnaround time from weeks to days. The company is shipping to over 30 countries and 9 of the world’s top 10 biology universities.
“Synthego’s platform uniquely enables scientists to conduct genome engineering research in a highly efficient, affordable, and scalable way," said Jennifer Doudna, CRISPR pioneer and a professor of Molecular Biology and Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, in a statement published by the company. "The RNA synthesis capabilities of Synthego's team represent a significant leap forward for synthetic biology."
The guide RNA is a critical part of the process, but removed from the CRISPR patent scuffles and licensing debates. “The chemistries we’re using aren’t patented,” Dabrowski explains, “and we have a lot of different use cases regarding the types of RNA we can sell.”
Doudna’s investment in the company included no IP or licensing, but Dabrowski said there is interest in getting licensing on behalf of Synthego customers—“so it comes with the product.” The company is speaking with “multiple parties”, but is also waiting. “The market is still developing and growing incredibly quickly with regard to the patent situation,” Dabrowski said.
Competitive Edge
Synthego’s proprietary technology instead lies in robotics, automation, and liquid handling. That’s where Dabrowski’s computer engineering background comes in.
Paul Dabrowski and his brother, Michael Dabrowski, are co-founders of Synthego. Michael servers as President. Both are computer engineers and both worked for SpaceX, the rocket science company founded by Elon Musk in 2002.
“What we saw there was how computer engineering principles are applied to making hardware of space rockets. We started to realize our background and our training was generally applicable besides just computer engineer,” Paul Dabrowski said. “Over the course of a couple of years we realized that there might be opportunity in the biotech world to make some changes and make some improvements.”
Synthego has spent about 5 years, Dabrowski said, applying those lessons to making synthetic guide RNAs. Using engineering science, biology, and software, the company has created an automated factory for RNA. Dabrowski wouldn’t share too many details. “We’ve created proprietary technology for liquid handling and custom instruments that are very software-driven and smart,” he said.
Automation improves quality and turnaround time, removing much of the risk of human error, he said. “That’s a critical aspect. There’s really no human decision making involved in our process. It’s all software driven. When there is someone interacting with the product, they have a kind of smart phone app that tells them what to do next. There’s no room for error,” in the core liquid handling technology, Dabrowski said
Synthego isn’t the first of the brothers’ joint ventures; they started a mobile software company after they left SpaceX. That’s where they learned that although their technical training is similar, their mindsets and skillsets are complimentary and they enjoyed working together. Paul as CEO has a more “outward facing, big ideas” role, while Michael as president is “making sure that everything is actually working.”
It was good training ground Dabrowski said. “I wouldn’t recommend trying to start a venture-backed company as a first company with a sibling. I think you should start smaller and make sure you actually like working together,” he laughed.
