Portfolio Company Update: Onego Bio
21st September 2022
("Agronomics" or the "Company")
Portfolio Company Onego Bio Announces Partnership with Perfect Day
Agronomics (AIM:ANIC), the leading listed company focused on the field of cellular agriculture, is pleased to announce that portfolio company Onego Bio Ltd ("Onego Bio"), a company developing sustainable and animal free egg proteins via precision fermentation, has entered into a partnership with Perfect Day, Inc. ("Perfect Day"), the leader in production of dairy proteins also via precision fermentation, through Perfect Day's latest enterprise biology business nth Bio. Onego Bio utilises the same efficient microflora platform as Perfect Day, but for production of egg white proteins, beginning with its first product Bioalbumen™. This partnership will allow Onego Bio to access Perfect Day's expertise in strain engineering, bioprocess development, regulatory support, and process services, accelerating the scale up and commercialisation of their animal-free egg white proteins.
Agronomics holds 340,237 shares in Onego Bio, representing an equity ownership of 19.94% on a fully diluted basis following its investment in February 2022 . Agronomics currently carries this position in its accounts at cost of EUR 6.9M. Based on the last unaudited Net Asset Value ("NAV") as at 30 June 2022, the Onego Bio position represents 4.1% of NAV.
The full announcement is set out below without any material changes:
Perfect Day Deepens Investment in Enterprise Biology Business with New Brand Identity, nth Bio, and Announces Partnership with Onego Bio
Company unveils enterprise biology partnership with Onego Bio, to accelerate scaling of animal-free egg white protein production
SALT LAKE CITY (SEPTEMBER 20, 2022) - Today, global biotechnology leader Perfect Day announces the new brand identity of its enterprise biology business - nth Bio - and its first publicly-announced partner, Onego Bio, Ltd. Following the announcement of its enterprise biology hub and second U.S. base in Salt Lake City earlier this year, Perfect Day has formalized the vision for its newest area of impact under the nth Bio brand. nth offers the company's expertise and technology services to companies across the globe who share its kinder, greener mission and empowers them to extend their impact into new areas of the food system and beyond.
n th has been working largely behind-the-scenes for the past two years to deliver scale-up production, IP licensing, strain engineering services, and other solutions to a diverse range of precision fermentation, biopharmaceutical, and life sciences customers. n th is the only enterprise biology company in the world that offers end-to-end expertise and services from the earliest stages of molecular development to commercial-scale manufacturing, and the many steps in-between.
In addition to debuting the n th Bio brand, the company is excited to be able to publicly share its work with partner Onego Bio as a hallmark example of what it stands to achieve through this work. Onego Bio aims to use a breakthrough technology to commercialize animal-free ovalbumin, the most abundant egg white protein, with precision fermentation. Global egg production has almost doubled its volume during the past 20 years and is forecasted to reach 138 million tons by 2030. The Onego Bio team stands to meet that demand in a way that preserves the future of our planet.nth has accelerated the timeline for turning this vision into a reality by offering its strain engineering, bioprocess development, regulatory support, and scale up process services.
"The name nth Bio comes from the exponential impact we stand to have by bringing others along on our journey. It's our commitment to creating a kinder, greener tomorrow through collaboration - taken to the nth degree. We look forward to continuing this work from our Salt Lake City base, supporting innovative, mission-aligned companies with nth and extending our impact into new industries," said Ryan Pandya, Perfect Day co-founder and CEO. "Onego Bio is a serious, new player in the field, with top-notch technology skills and world class experts that share our kinder, greener mission. We believe their animal-free egg white products will play a significant role in transforming our food chain," he added.
Onego Bio is a spin-off from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland that has been developing and researching precision fermentation technology for the past several years. The technology is based on the same efficient microflora platform that is used by Perfect Day to produce animal-free milk proteins. Onego Bio aims to launch its first product Bioalbumen™ in the U.S. as a food ingredient for the bakery and confectionary industry-as well as a protein supplement for fitness products-and later enter the consumer market with its own branded products for baking and cooking.
"We are thrilled to announce the partnership with nth Bio. Perfect Day has been an enormous trailblazer in the global animal-free protein business, gaining GRAS status in the United States, and successfully communicating the no-compromise impact potential that its technology empowers to a larger audience. We are excited to have the opportunity to work with Perfect Day to follow in their footsteps with our own Onego Bio products," said Maija Itkonen, CEO of Onego Bio.
This global partnership and the work of n th underscore Perfect Day's deep commitment to impact through collaboration. As the first company to bring nature-identical, animal-free proteins to market at scale, Perfect Day has unmatched expertise and potential for impact, which it can't maximize alone. By giving access to essential tools and infrastructure, n th allows partners like Onego to accelerate the things our world needs to move in a more sustainable direction. The best way to change the world for the better is to work with others to create broader impact. The potential is exponential.
Scaling this newest part of Perfect Day's business augments the impact of the company's ongoing work bringing animal-free products to consumers via its B2B ingredient partners and consumer brands under The Urgent Company. Perfect Day has already produced more animal-free whey protein in the first half of this year than it did in all of 2021 and has unlocked the capacity to produce thousands of metric tons starting next year through its four commercial-scale facilities around the world. Consumers can find kinder, greener products made with Perfect Day's first ingredient, animal-free whey protein, across six categories in three countries.
About nth Bio
n th Bio by Perfect Day is empowering a new generation of bioengineers to shape the world they envision. As an incubator for ideas that foster rapid fruition, nth offers enterprise biology services to allow its partners to grow their projects from beginning to end. We provide the perspective, knowledge, and experience to scale and nurture ideas systemically. Because progress doesn't happen in a silo, it happens as a system.
n th Bio is pioneering a new field of biology applications to extend Perfect Day's impact into new areas beyond what they could do alone. nth brings the company's unparalleled expertise to offer services from strain engineering to piloting to full-scale production, and everything in-between-and is the only enterprise biology company that can offer services anywhere on that journey. By sharing their expertise with other innovators, nth is accelerating the path to a kinder, greener tomorrow.
About Onego Bio Ltd
Onego Bio Ltd is a game-changing biotech company producing animal-free egg proteins with precision fermentation. When implemented in full scale, this new production method provides significant benefits to the environment, food security, as well as animal welfare. The team believes the chosen technology is superior because of its efficiency and productivity. Based on the anticipatory LCA published in Nature Food , the technology shows potential to significantly reduce most agriculture-associated impacts, such as global warming and land use.
Egg is one of the world's most used animal proteins and difficult to replace with alternative ingredients. Onego Bio will make it possible to manufacture the same delicious foods entirely animal-free. Company aims to launch its first product Bioalbumen™ as a food ingredient for food industry and later enter the consumer market with its own branded products for baking and cooking. Bioalbumen provides the nutritional and functional upsides of egg white, without the environmental, ethical and safety-related concerns.
Founded in 2022 by Maija Itkonen (CEO), Christopher Landowski (CTO) and Jussi Joensuu (COO), Onego Bio is a VTT spin-off that salutes the remarkable work done by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland for the next level cell ag products and applications. Onego Bio's mission is to rethink eggs and give people access to sustainable, delicious and healthy animal-free food. Learn more at www.onego.bio and follow our journey in LinkedIn , Twitter and Instagram .
About Perfect Day, Inc.
Founded in 2014 by Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi, Perfect Day is on a mission to create a kinder, greener tomorrow through the harmony of science and nature. Leveraging expertise across biology, food innovation, and consumer products, Perfect Day supports companies in developing, scaling, and commercializing next-generation products that satisfy market demands and champion a path toward a sustainable future.
The company's flagship product, the world's first precision-fermented protein, debuted in 2020 and today can be found in animal-free ice creams, cream cheese, baked goods, and sports nutrition products across the U.S., Hong Kong, and Singapore. Instead of relying on cows, Perfect Day utilizes microflora to create proprietary animal-free milk protein. Perfect Day's protein can be used across a range of products to deliver the same taste and texture while supporting the planet. An ISO compliant, third-party reviewed life cycle assessment (LCA) found that Perfect Day's whey protein reduces blue water consumption by up to 99%, greenhouse gas emissions by up to 97%, and non-renewable energy use by up to 60%, when compared to conventional production methods.
To learn more, visit perfectday.com or follow along on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , and LinkedIn .
Agronomics is a leading listed alternative proteins company with a focus on cellular agriculture and cultivated meat. The Company has established a portfolio of 24 companies at the Pre-Seed to Series C stage in this rapidly advancing sector. It seeks to secure minority stakes in companies owning technologies with defensible intellectual property that offer new ways of producing food and materials with a focus on products historically derived from animals. These technologies are driving a major disruption in agriculture, offering solutions to improve sustainability, as well as addressing human health, animal welfare and environmental damage. This disruption will decouple supply chains from the environment and animals, as well as being fundamental to feeding the world's expanding population. A full list of Agronomics' portfolio companies is available at https://agronomics.im/ .
About Cellular Agriculture
Cellular Agriculture is the production of agriculture products directly from cells, as opposed to raising an animal for slaughter, or growing crops. This encompasses cell culture to produce cultivated meat and materials, and fermentation processes that harness a combination of molecular biology, synthetic biology, tissue engineering and biotechnology to massively simplify production methods in a sustainable manner.
Over the coming decades, the source of the world's food supply traditionally derived from conventional agriculture is going to change dramatically. We have already witnessed the first wave of this shift with the consumer adoption of plant-based alternative proteins but today, we are on the cusp of an even bigger wave of change. This is being facilitated by advances in cellular agriculture. This change is necessary, given scientists claims that if we maintain existing animal protein consumption patterns, then we will not meet the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting warming to 1.5 ℃
AT Kearney, a global consultancy firm, projects that cultivated meat's market share will reach 35% by 2040. This combined with the Good Food Institute's estimate that a US $1.8 trillion investment will be required in order to produce just 10% of the world's protein using this technology, means that we are on the cusp of a multi-decade flow of capital to build out manufacturing facilities. Funding in the field of cellular agriculture is accelerating, however still less than US$ 4 billion has been invested worldwide since the industry's inception in 2016.
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