The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is giving Ginkgo Bioworks a 4-year contract worth up to $18 million, to manufacture complex therapeutic proteins.
Ginkgo is part of DARPA’s “Reimagining Protein Manufacturing project,” which is designed to help the DOD get access to proteins more quickly. Ginkgo plans to manufacture proteins faster by using its “cell-free protein synthesis to enable rapid, high-yield” production of proteins for national security initiatives.
“There is growing recognition that pharmaceutical supply chains are at risk. One way to meet this challenge is distributed manufacturing at the point of care. Imagine a future where drugs, including complex biologics, are produced locally or in a widely distributed manner on-demand,” Ginkgo Bioworks CEO Jason Kelly said in a release.
The hope is that the program can produce medical countermeasures to treat diseases related to “chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear threats.”
