Ginkgo inks RNA deal with Pfizer worth a potential $331m

Pfizer will use Ginkgo Bioworks’ RNA technology to discover and develop RNA molecules across three unspecified programs.

Under the terms of the deal, Ginkgo could receive up to $331 million from Pfizer, made up of an undisclosed upfront payment and specific milestones. Ginkgo’s RNA technology screens the behaviour of RNA constructs using a multi-parameter design framework to establish natural and synthetic elements for application.

The firm, which describes itself as “a horizontal platform, serving customers across industries rather than producing its own products,” said it will install these capabilities with Pfizer to achieve production, improved stability, circularization, and advanced translation of each RNA construct to create new therapeutics.

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“RNA therapeutics are proving to be an important platform to advance the world of scientific innovation, and with progress in synthetic biology we have the potential to create new RNA treatments that may benefit patients worldwide,” said Will Somers, head of Biomedicine Design, Pfizer.

“Access to Ginkgo’s proprietary platform will help enable Pfizer to search for novel and exciting RNA constructs with improved stability and expression that could lead to more effective treatments.”

Pfizer has already seen major messenger RNA (mRNA) success with BioNTech and their respective COVID-19 vaccine, BNT162b2 (Comirnaty). And in January 2022, the firm announced its plans at JP Morgan’s healthcare conference to become an mRNA powerhouse through a string of deals.

In the same month, Pfizer and BioNTech teamed up again to produce a vaccine for shingles (herpes zoster) using BioNTech’s proprietary mRNA technology and Pfizer’s antigen technology.

The work will take place at Ginkgo’s site in Boston, Massachusetts.

Ginkgo deals

Ginkgo supported Moderna through optimizing processes for raw materials used to make mRNA vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. The firm also partnered with Aldevron in August 2021 and said the collaboration had resulted in a breakthrough for Vaccinia Capping Enzymes (VCEs) with a tenfold mRNA improvement.  In October 2022,  Ginkgo acquired Circularis, a circular RNA biotechnology firm to support growing demand for nucleic acid and advanced therapy services.

“RNA therapeutics are programmable medicines. The key to making them work well and safely is their sequences. Ginkgo’s unique RNA technology provides its partners with a powerful platform to explore extensive genetic design possibilities, employing both model-guided and unbiased methods. This process is greatly streamlined through automation and the utilization of large-scale data resources, enabling the discovery of innovative functional RNA sequences optimized for partners’ specific medical applications,” a spokesperson for Ginkgo told BioProcess Insider.