US biotech firm Ginkgo Bioworks has acquired Gen9, a provider of synthetic DNA, for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition, said Ginkgo, will bring Gen9’s expertise in assembling pathway-length synthetic DNA into its automated organism-engineering foundries, improving the speed and capacity in constructing new organism designs for use across multiple industries.

 “Gen9 was founded to significantly increase the world’s capacity to cost-effectively generate high-quality DNA for use in transforming industries and powering the bioeconomy,” commented Kevin Munnelly, president and CEO of Gen9, adding that Ginkgo has been its largest customer in recent years and was a “truly natural fit.”

The “groundbreaking” partnership was estabolished in June last year when Gen9 agreed to manufacture and supply 300 million base pairs of long-length synthetic DNA content to Ginkgo.

Using its technology, Gen9 has been able to produce long fragments of synthetic DNA, up to 10,000 base pairs. Ginkgo said the long DNA sequences are crucial for its pipeline of designing and prototyping multi-gene enzyme pathways for the production of cultured ingredients, including flavors and fragrances, cosmetics and nutritional ingredients, as well as specialty enzymes and intermediate chemicals used in a number of industries.

 “We are seeing interest from a broad range of companies looking to use cultured ingredients to make their products in a more efficient and more sustainable way. Having more direct, immediate access to the building blocks primarily for our internal use will allow us to continue to push the envelope of what is possible in biotechnology,” said Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Ginkgo Bioworks.

Ginkgo’s facilities will house Gen9’s BioFab manufacturing platform and proprietary technologies, software and informatics tools as well as Gen9’s intellectual property portfolio of more than 125 patents as well as those pending related to DNA synthesis and assembly technology.