It’s been a rough go lately for synthetic biology’s flagship companies, which genetically engineer microbes to produce everything from medicines to materials. Three highfliers—each of which once had multibillion-dollar market capitalizations—have fallen fast and hard.
Amyris declared bankruptcy last year and by the beginning of this year had sold off several of its cosmetic and personal care product brands. In February, Zymergen, which was betting on microbes to produce transparent and flexible plastic films, liquidated its assets. And in June, Ginkgo Bioworks announced plans to lay off more than one-third of its workers after its stock tanked and revenues for its designer microbes failed to materialize.
“There has been a reckoning,” says Jay Keasling, a synthetic biologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and co-founder of Amyris. Still, not all synbio companies are generating bad news, with some focused on pharmaceuticals and additives living up to the hype that has often surrounded the field.
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