Amyris employs Inscripta’s Onyx genome engineering platform for sustainable beauty NPD

06 Oct 2021 --- Amyris is enlisting Inscripta’s genome engineering platform Onyx to enhance its sustainable fermented ingredients R&D pipeline across several personal care segments, including clean beauty.

The two companies will explore joint research and development opportunities to expand the Onyx platform’s functionality.

“The Onyx platform adds a complementary new way of accelerating yeast evolution to make the fermentations faster and more efficient, and as a result, bring new ingredients to market quicker,” Kirsten Benjamin, vice president of R&D at Amyris, tells PersonalCareInsights.

“The platform will support our R&D efforts by generating more genetic diversity in our projects and leading to more efficient product innovation, ultimately accelerating the time to market. Amyris formulates effective beauty ingredients and products that are commercialized through our consumer brands and partners.”

The use of the Onyx platform by Amyris utilizes “scale and precision” to ensure the quick progress of innovation for commercial industries, explains Nandini Krishnamurthy, vice president, microbial business unit at Inscripta.

“This partnership also brings together two companies who are committed to continued innovation in the field of genome engineering and to give scientists the tools they need to scale discovery and the commercialization of more sustainable consumer products. We hope this collaboration will inspire other practitioners in the clean health and beauty markets to adopt our platform.”

Ensuring quality ingredients
Amyris’ product development and formulation team use a Lab-to-Market operating system to develop and scale a growing portfolio of sustainable ingredients.

The Lab-to-Market operating system delivers predictable commercialization, significant cost reduction and the fastest timeline for bringing a new ingredient to market, details Benjamin.Squalane is an emollient and moisturizing ingredient that is commonly used in skincare products.

“We use a fermentation-based manufacturing approach that uses engineered yeast and responsibly sourced sugarcane. We can make a wide variety of products through the biotransformation of sugarcane, which is plentiful and requires relatively little use of land and water.”

For instance, squalane is an emollient and moisturizing ingredient that is commonly used in skincare products, she explains.

“Through the fermentation-based approach, we can produce 1 kg of squalane using only 0.1% hectare of sugarcane, a highly regenerative plant. Amyris’ fermented squalane is an ingredient in Biossance’s clean skincare line and is used by other skincare brand partners,” she adds.

The Onyx platform automates benchtop biofoundry activity and will bring greater genetic diversity and value to Amyris’ ingredient development pipeline. The platform will add to Amyris’ existing Lab-to-Market operating system to improve efficiency and reduce timelines for the development of future molecules.

“The Onyx platform adds a complementary new way of accelerating yeast evolution to make the fermentations faster and more efficient, and as a result, bring new ingredients to market faster,” reveals Benjamin.

Cells and microbes
The Onyx genome engineering platform is a synthetic biology technology that accelerates the pace of discovery through precision and scale, notes Krishnamurthy.

“It is an automated digital genome engineering platform with the capacity to deliver cell libraries with up to 10,000 edits using E. coli or yeast. Scientists can introduce pathways of interest into their favorite strain of E. coli or yeast and then use the Onyx platform to generate thousands of edits of their choice in about a month – with actual hands-on time as little as a couple of hours.”The Onyx platform will support Amyris’ R&D efforts by generating more genetic diversity in projects, resulting in efficient product innovation. 

Amyris’ use of the platform will demonstrate the advantages that are possible when you can increase the pace of discovery through genome-scale engineering, she continues.

In giving insight into how the Onyx genome engineering platform will impact the personal care industry, Krishnamurthy adds that although microbial engineering is a critical focus, the process is slow.

“The process of engineering microbes at scale is currently prolonged, tedious and requires significant investments in technology and software to scale. Inscripta’s Onyx platform delivers precision, scale and ease of use that enables both the experts and non-experts to engineer genomes and accelerate discovery,” Krishnamurthy concludes.

Amyris’ previous growth
Earlier this year, DSM accelerated its existing personal care ingredients portfolio by acquiring Amyris’ flavor and fragrance bio-based intermediates business for US$150 million.

In August, Amyris acquired Olika, a hand sanitizer brand, and MG Empower, an influencer marketing agency, to further its growth. In the same month, Amyris addressed dry skin and inflammation with the launch of Terasana Clinical, a skincare brand.

By Nicole Kerr