Ginkgo Bioworks acquires Patch Biosciences, no terms disclosed

Ginkgo Bioworks announced the acquisition of Patch Biosciences, which has built an AI platform for sequence design that enables more effective, specific, and durable genetic medicines and was backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Bio + Health, Casdin Capital, and S32. The acquisition is intended to strengthen Ginkgo’s Gene Therapy Services, Cell Therapy Services, and RNA Therapeutics Services. Ginkgo does not have a product portfolio or drug pipeline. Instead, Ginkgo provides R&D services to customers who are looking to innovate across industries, including many world-class partners in biopharma. Ginkgo will incorporate Patch’s machine learning models and downstream assays into its existing platform, making new capabilities in synthetic promoter and untranslated region engineering available to partners. Additionally, Patch’s validated muscle promoters and robust RNA UTRs complement Ginkgo’s circular RNA and promoter screening platform technology, which is already accelerating customer program progress.