Octant doubles its initial investment in Zymergen’s Automation Technology to significantly increase the scale and throughput of its drug discovery platform

EMERYVILLE, Calif., July 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zymergen Inc. (“Zymergen” or the “Company”) today announced it has expanded its agreement with Octant to further scale their next-generation platform to develop breakthrough medicines. In May, Octant purchased five Reconfigurable Automation Carts, or RACs, to improve the throughput, efficiency, and reliability of operations for its existing platform. Octant has now more than doubled its initial investment through the purchase of an additional six RAC units, vastly increasing the system’s throughput, capabilities, and ability to run complex workflows.

“We’ve been extremely pleased with the performance of our current RAC System and are looking forward to expanding the system’s capabilities in Stage 2,” said Sri Kosuri, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Octant. “We’re confident that this next stage will deliver capabilities to accelerate the growth of our platform and advance our mission to develop life-changing medicines for some of the world’s most challenging diseases.”

“We are thrilled with the expansion of Octant’s RAC System and with the success of their Stage 1 System thus far,” said Will Serber, Zymergen’s Head of Automation. “It’s been an incredible journey to watch this technology develop internally at Zymergen and even more rewarding to now see it outside of Zymergen, supporting other companies’ missions.”

About Zymergen’s Automation Technology

Zymergen’s automation technology is designed to improve the throughput, efficiency, and reliability of lab operations. It is based on building blocks called Reconfigurable Automation Carts, or RACs, which house task-targeted instruments like liquid handlers and analytical devices. RACs are easily connected to form a raceway that moves plates from station to station and can be controlled remotely by Zymergen’s cloud software that schedules workflows, monitors progress, and collects scientific, process, and instrument performance data. A RAC system can scale to various sizes depending on throughput and application, and can be reconfigured in a matter of hours. See more at zymergen.com/automation.

About Zymergen

Zymergen is a biotech company that designs and produces molecules, microbes and materials for diverse end markets. We partner with nature to make better products, a better way, for a better world. For more information visit www.zymergen.com.

About Octant

Octant is a next-generation therapeutics company integrating novel and scaled experimental technologies (multiplexed measurements and high-throughput synthetic chemistry) with computation to solve complex challenges in drug discovery. Octant engineers drugs with novel mechanisms of action guided by extensive proprietary datasets in engineered human cells that unlock insights between genomes, drug candidates, biochemical function, and disease phenotypes. The Octant platform uses synthetic biology, high throughput multiplexed assays, synthetic chemistry, and computation to engineer and interrogate drugs, proteins, and cellular pathways at unprecedented scales. For more information visit www.octant.bio.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Such forward-looking statements are based on the Company’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to it on the date of this press release. In some cases, you can identify these statements by forward-looking words such as “may,” “will,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “could,” “project,” “expect” or the negative or plural of these words or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements in this press release, include but are not limited to statements regarding the customer pipeline for our automation business, the potential benefits of our automation technology and services to our customers, and our expectations for future enhancement and expansion of our automation technology and services for our customers. Forward-looking statements may involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, risks relating to the Company’s ability to attract and retain automation customers and to provide and expand its automation technology and services for its customers. These and other risks are described more fully in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2022, and other documents the Company subsequently files with the SEC. Except to the extent required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

Zymergen Investor Contact
investors@zymergen.com

Octant, Inc. Media Contacts
press@octant.bio

Source: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/07/14/2480110/0/en/Zymergen-Expands-Agreement-with-Octant-to-Scale-Next-Generation-Drug-Discovery-Platform.html