Dr. Behnke to oversee scale-up of Lumen’s cGMP production facility and continuous process improvement programs

Seattle, WA—July 9, 2018—Lumen Bioscience, a Seattle company developing novel biologics on its proprietary Spirulina expression platform, announced today that Dr. Craig Behnke has joined its executive team as Senior Vice President, Production and Development.

Dr. Behnke will assume leadership of Lumen’s existing production and development teams, which are expanding Lumen’s cGMP production capacity, and driving continuous improvements in growth and extraction efficiencies. He joins as Lumen launches its first product, RioBlue™, a high-purity protein extract used as a blue colorant by the food and cosmetics industries. Dr. Behnke previously served as Vice President of Research and Development at Sapphire Energy in San Diego, a pioneer in the industrial-scale cultivation of photosynthetic microbes.​

“We are pleased to welcome Dr. Behnke to Lumen’s senior leadership team,” said Brian Finrow, Lumen’s CEO and co-founder. “Craig’s experience makes him the perfect leader to scale commercial production beyond our current facility in Seattle. His scientific background and history of scaling up biological systems at Sapphire will be invaluable as we continue to expand our capacity.”​

Used first as a nutritional supplement for its naturally high protein, vitamin and antioxidant content, US Spirulina extract sales soared after 2014 when the FDA approved it for use as a natural food colorant. Today it remains the only approved natural blue food pigment in the US, and is used mainly as a natural alternative to FD&C Blue #1, an artificial food colorant that is synthesized from petroleum.​

Lumen’s improved strains produce far more of the active blue pigment protein than traditional methods, which in turn yields higher purity product at a fraction of the price. This technology is expected to significantly expand adoption of Spirulina extract in the food industry by unlocking new applications that are now infeasible due to its current high market price, and technical limitations relating to the natural pigment’s heat- and pH-instability –– all of which can be solved using Lumen’s proprietary technology.​

“I am thrilled to be joining such a talented group of scientists, engineers, and quality professionals,” Dr. Behnke said. “This team has built a robust, integrated, cGMP-compliant production system to produce the highest possible quality product. They've laid a great foundation as we look to scale production to meet global demand over the next 24-36 months. Over the course of my career I have had the good fortune to participate in some remarkable achievements in bio-process yield improvement, and I’m excited to help unlock the enormous commercial potential of this fascinating new platform.” Dr. Behnke holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Washington and an M.S. in Biochemistry from Kansas State.

In addition to its core colorants business, Lumen has also won research funding to use its new platform to develop ultra-low-cost biologic drugs and vaccines, all of which rely upon the same integrated, FDA cGMP production platform. In May, the National Institutes of Health awarded Lumen a grant to continue developing its oral malaria vaccine, and last month Lumen announced additional research funding from the United States Department of Agriculture and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for other vaccine and antibody research programs.​

About Lumen Bioscience

Lumen Bioscience is the first company to successfully use modern biotechnology tools in Spirulina, a blue-green algae that is widely grown for use in food, cosmetics and nutritional supplements. Lumen's tools and methods use Spirulina to make high-value proteins and other molecules for healthcare, food, cosmetics and industry. Traditional biotech platforms, many based on yeast and E. coli, have proven unsuitable for the large-scale production of certain classes of proteins and other biologics. Lumen’s Spirulina technology provides an important new production platform for the biotechnology industry. For more information about Lumen please visit our website: www.lumen.bio.​

Contacts

Opus Biotech CommunicationsDan Eramian, +1-425-306-8716danieleramian@comcast.net

Source: https://www.lumenbioscience.com/behnke