QL AG Announces Partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks to Develop Dairy Proteins

ZURICH, Switzerland and BOSTON, Oct. 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- QL AG, an innovative food technology solutions company, today announced a new collaboration to develop dairy proteins with Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA), which is building the leading platform for cell programming and biosecurity. QL AG will tap into Ginkgo's extensive capabilities in strain engineering across multiple chassis organisms to support its goal of providing the market with high-quality nutritionally equivalent dairy proteins.

The dairy industry faces significant pressures as climate change continues to lead to a reduction in arable land and water. Across the world, supply chain disruptions are increasing input costs and consumers are seeking out more healthy, tasty, sustainable, and affordable food options and alternatives to animal agriculture. As a result, the alternative dairy market has grown by tens of billions of dollars in recent years. Yet, current dairy alternatives still fall short of consumer criteria on critical factors like taste and texture.

"Dairy proteins derived using fermentation have advantages across many key dimensions, including taste and texture, as well as the fact that they have no arable land requirement and a lower water requirement," said Roger Föhn, CEO and co-founder of QL AG. "By accessing Ginkgo's platform, QL AG can help reduce the cost of producing dairy proteins with fermentation. We are excited to pursue our goal of making a quantum leap in alternative agriculture by leveraging Ginkgo's unique capabilities in producing strains at high titers and scaling fermentation processes."

"Dairy proteins provide an exciting opportunity to leverage our platform, as they have traditionally presented product developers with significant challenges around protein productivity, economics, and functionality for efficacy across different applications. We aim to solve such challenges with our deep expertise in protein engineering, novel bioactivity and biochemistry identification, high-throughput expression, functional studies and scale-up capabilities," said Kalpesh Parekh, Vice President of Business Development at Ginkgo Bioworks. "We are so excited about QL AG's mission, and can't wait to further grow our capabilities in the precision fermentation space by working with such an innovative partner."

To learn more about Ginkgo Protein Production Services, please visit https://www.ginkgobioworks.com/offerings/protein-services/.

About Ginkgo Bioworks
Ginkgo Bioworks is the leading horizontal platform for cell programming, providing flexible, end-to-end services that solve challenges for organizations across diverse markets, from food and agriculture to pharmaceuticals to industrial and specialty chemicals. Ginkgo's biosecurity and public health unit, Concentric by Ginkgo, is building global infrastructure for biosecurity to empower governments, communities, and public health leaders to prevent, detect and respond to a wide variety of biological threats. For more information, visit ginkgobioworks.com and concentricbyginkgo.com, read our blog, or follow us on social media channels such as X (formerly known as Twitter) (@Ginkgo and @ConcentricByGBW), Instagram (@GinkgoBioworks and @ConcentricByGinkgo), Threads (@GinkgoBioworks) or LinkedIn.

About QL AG
QL AG was founded in 2022 in Switzerland by a team with extensive experience in food innovation, biotechnology, and the financial industry. QL develops and commercializes products and solutions for the food industry to ensure provision of healthy, tasty, and sustainable food. For more information visit www.ql-ag.com or contact [email protected].

Forward-Looking Statements of Ginkgo Bioworks
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding the capabilities and potential success of the partnership and Ginkgo's cell programming platform. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words "believe," "can," "project," "potential," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "strategy," "future," "opportunity," "plan," "may," "should," "will," "would," "will be," "will continue," "will likely result," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not limited to: (i) volatility in the price of Ginkgo's securities due to a variety of factors, including changes in the competitive and highly regulated industries in which Ginkgo operates and plans to operate, variations in performance across competitors, and changes in laws and regulations affecting Ginkgo's business, (ii) the ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other expectations, and to identify and realize additional business opportunities, (iii) the risk of downturns in demand for products using synthetic biology, (iv) the uncertainty regarding the demand for passive monitoring programs and biosecurity services, (v) changes to the biosecurity industry, including due to advancements in technology, emerging competition and evolution in industry demands, standards and regulations, (vi) our ability to realize the expected benefits of merger and acquisition transactions, (vii) the outcome of any legal proceedings against Ginkgo, including as a result of recent acquisitions, (viii) our ability to realize the expected benefits from and the success of our Foundry platform programs, (ix) our ability to successfully develop engineered cells, bioprocesses, data packages or other deliverables, and (x) the product development or commercialization success of our customers. The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and uncertainties described in the "Risk Factors" section of Ginkgo's quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on August 9, 2023 and other documents filed by Ginkgo from time to time with the SEC. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and Ginkgo assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Ginkgo does not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations. 

QL AG CONTACT:
[email protected] 

GINKGO BIOWORKS INVESTOR CONTACT:
[email protected] 

GINKGO BIOWORKS MEDIA CONTACT:
press@ginkgobioworks.com

SOURCE Ginkgo Bioworks