A Decisive Decade for Synthetic Biology

The following article is an opinion piece written by Prof. Richard I Kitney. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Technology Networks.

The UK has spent the last 20 years building a globally recognized strength in undertaking synthetic biology and engineering biology (SB/EB) research. The coming decade will determine whether scientific/engineering leadership translates into industrial and economic advantage. With £2 billion in public investment and rapid advances in AI-enabled design, automation, and biomanufacturing, the UK has the opportunity to scale start-ups into globally competitive companies across therapeutics, agriculture, chemicals, energy, and materials. The question is no longer whether the science works but whether the UK can build the infrastructure and capital systems needed to turn discovery into industry.

The UK’s current strength is the result of deliberate, long-term investment. Since 2008, government and research funders have built national capability in synthetic biology, beginning with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s Science and Innovation Award to Imperial College to establish its Centre for Synthetic Biology. This effort was significantly accelerated following the Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2009 report, which led to a £300 million government commitment in 2012 to build a network of synthetic biology research centers. Rather than concentrating activity in one location, centers were established across the UK in areas of existing expertise in the designated universities. The established centers included: BrisSynBio focused on a range of applications in Bristol, Cambridge University and the John Innes Centre focusing on agroscience, the UK Centre for Mammalian Synthetic Biology in Edinburgh focusing on medicine and health, SynBioChem in Manchester dedicated to chemical applications, the Synthetic Biology Research Centre Nottingham focusing on fuels, and the Warwick Integrative Synthetic Biology Centre.

While the basic strategy for establishing these centers was to build on existing research strengths, 2013 marked a noticeable shift when the government established a National Centre for the Industrial Translation of Synthetic Biology. Opened by Imperial College via open competition, SynbiCITE focused on a new model comprised of three hubs: a Science, Engineering, BioDesign, and Applications Hub, providing major support for project development for companies; a Facilities Hub, comprising a biofoundry and mass spectrometry facility; and a Business and Outreach Hub, offering industrially oriented business courses and a major annual conference (SynbiTECH).

Since its creation in 2013, SynbiCITE has supported a core group of 30 UK start-ups and SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) and interacts with an outer ring of around 50 other companies. A recent independent assessment of the core group of companies, many of which SynbiCITE helped found, established that they now have a market cap of around £850 million.

In addition to the well-established research centers, a recent development in the landscape comprises six new “Mission Hubs” backed by £100 million of government investment over the next five years. These include Engineered Genetic Control Systems for Advanced Therapeutics (lead, Edinburgh University); GlycoCell Engineering (lead, University of Nottingham); Microbial Foods (lead, Imperial College); Preventing Plastic Pollution (lead, University of Portsmouth); Environmental Biotechnology (lead, Cranfield University); and Environmental Processing and Recovery of Metals (lead, University of Kent).

Synthetic biology recognized as a strategic priority

The current state of play is that EB/SB is now recognized by the UK government as one of four fields of significant importance for the growth of the UK economy (the others being AI/ML, quantum and semiconductors, and cyber security and advanced connectivity). It is one of the cornerstones of the UK’s Industrial Strategy, backed by £2 billion of government investment committed through to 2034, and has a strong foundation to progress from.

This is of course a positive shift; EB/SB is firmly positioned as a strategic priority, the UK’s research system is now producing a steady pipeline of technologies ready for translation and the mission hubs reflect a more targeted, challenge-driven approach to innovation. Yet with limited infrastructure to move beyond pilot scale, many of these advances risk remaining stuck between laboratory success and commercial reality.

Consequently, the next phase in the development of EB/SB must be to enhance the UK’s bioeconomy by accelerating the industrial translation of research into biomanufacturing output—and translating this into economic value. This will typically be achieved through scaling the activities of start-ups and SMEs. Big industry will play a role, but while the field of EB/SB is still considered “high risk”, they will continue to play a relatively small part in these developments.

Moving from the lab to industry: The need for more synthetic biology infrastructure

To achieve effective industrial translation, there is a pressing need for better infrastructure for EB/SB. Principally, this involves the development of a far greater number of biofoundries and [precision] fermentation facilities. Currently, there are various examples of UK start-ups and SMEs that have scaled up their technology through centers in mainland Europe. The danger here is that once a company has moved to mainland Europe for scale-up, in the longer term their base may not be in the UK. This raises a more fundamental issue. To grow the bioeconomy through the growth of new industry based in EB/SB, there will need to be new financial models. Because of the levels of finance involved, public sector finance will be unable to meet this need. Consequently, there is a pressing need for significant amounts of private sector funding.

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Traditionally, companies working in the EB/SB sector develop technology through government grants of different types and/or small private sector funding (e.g. family and friends). In UK terms, such grants generally run out at the £1 to £1.5 million level. As a rule of thumb, traditional venture capitalists (VCs) in the UK are only prepared to fund once a company has been significantly de-risked for them to come in at around the roughly £4 million level, leaving companies to fall into a funding gap.

One of the significant drawbacks of investing in EB/SB from a traditional VC standpoint is that significant revenue may only occur after eight years of development as opposed to three or four years in other fields. While specialist investors are beginning to emerge that have knowledge of the sector and are prepared to come in at a much lower level, consequently at an earlier stage, the long development timelines to achieving significant revenue continue to deter mainstream funding. This creates a systemic bottleneck: high-potential companies struggle to reach the scale where they become commercially viable, despite offering the prospect of substantial long-term returns. 

Other regions are already moving to solve this problem. Westphalia in Germany has developed a strategy not only to boost the industrial translation of synthetic biology, but to allow the region to move away from its traditional industries, such as chemistry and coal mining. Generally, to move away from a fossil-based economy to a sustainable circular economy. This has been achieved through public-private partnerships (PPPs), building shared frameworks, collaborative hubs, and infrastructure for new biofoundries and fermentation facilities, rather than the classic single-project PPPs. The basic strategy is that public funding de-risks industrial translation of academic research and allows private sector funding to undertake scaling. This model could have significant implications for similar developments in the UK.

The convergence of major developments in AI, automation through optimized protocols in biofoundries, and precision fermentation is accelerating what is technically possible in SB/EB. By combining this progress with the UK’s existing research base, properly developing our infrastructure, financing models, and industrial capacity, the UK has a genuine opportunity to lead across industries. The outcome is not guaranteed, but the next decade will determine whether the UK can compete globally with industrial developments in therapeutics and diagnostics, crops and soil, commodity and specialty chemicals, bioremediation, bioenergy, and biomaterials.