KnipBio, Inc. announced it has completed a critical development step with the successful production of KnipBio Meal single cell protein in a 20,000-liter fermentation vessel. This work, done in cooperation with a major North American contract manufacturer, was designed to demonstrate the scalability of the company’s protein manufacturing process in preparation for full commercial operations next year. 

“Our team has worked tirelessly since the completion of our last scale-up and it’s exciting to see these efforts come to fruition," stated Larry Feinberg, CEO of KnipBio. "Successfully moving from 1,500-liter to 20,000-liter production is a critical pre-commercialization step and offers solid proof that our fermentation process is highly scalable. By working with a recognized leader in industrial fermentation, we were able to leverage their experience to overcome process challenges and at the same time identify improvements leading to significant manufacturing cost savings. As an added bonus, we crossed the metric ton production threshold, enabling us to provide volume samples to selected industry partners who will be conducting feed trials on a range of aquaculture species.”  

Feinberg continued, “To be successful in the aquaculture protein market we must be price-competitive with fishmeal and soy protein, so I was impressed that we managed to reduce production costs by more than 15x with this scale-up. Our next manufacturing goal is achieving full commercial-scale production. Additional opportunities include the use of ethanol waste streams to serve as feedstocks for our fermentation process. These efforts kick off in 2018 and will enable us to meet  our aggressive cost reduction targets.”