SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ: TWST), a company enabling customers to succeed through its offering of high-quality synthetic DNA using its silicon platform, today announced that it has developed an innovative, low cost, scarless and scalable enzymatic DNA synthesis process. With these comprehensive capabilities in synthesis, Twist offers multiple approaches to serve the growing number of markets leveraging synthetic DNA. Emily M. Leproust, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Twist Bioscience, will unveil the advancement during her presentation at the 40th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
Twist Enzymatic DNA Synthesis 3.0
Scientists at Twist have worked for the past 18 months to develop a novel approach to synthesize strands of DNA enzymatically. By leveraging Twist’s unique gene and variant library synthesis and screening capabilities, Twist developed novel enzyme/nucleotide conjugates that drastically reduce the quantity of nucleotide triphosphate (NTP) used by traditional enzymatic approaches, which significantly reduces the cost and offers a much more sustainable method of synthesis. In addition, the linkage between the enzyme and the nucleotide developed by Twist maintains the integrity of the DNA, with no ‘scars’ on the nucleobase from linker molecules. This allows the resulting enzymatically created synthetic DNA strand to be used interchangeably with naturally occurring DNA.
“Our culture of innovation and execution has once again delivered a breakthrough in DNA synthesis, this time using enzymes. Overcoming a significant drawback of existing enzymatic approaches, we have been able to create low cost synthetic DNA using enzymes which also circumvent the issue of scarring, so that the DNA synthesized using our process is identical to natural DNA,” said Dr. Leproust.
“Today, we use phosphoramidite chemistry in our robust commercial infrastructure to deliver billions of bases in DNA and RNA products to serve almost 3,000 customers in fiscal 2021 alone. We will continue to use this proven chemistry as we optimize our enzymatic capabilities. We see enzymatic synthesis playing a critical role in applications like DNA data storage, primers and probes for PCR, cell-free production of plasmid DNA, qPCR assays, decentralized DNA synthesis, and look forward to expanding our markets by offering these applications either directly through our channel or as OEM to our customers in the future,” she continued.
Partnerships with PacBio and Singular Genomics
Twist also announced that it is enabling next-generation sequencing (NGS) workflows for PacBio and Singular Genomics. Twist has customized its robust target enrichment and library preparation workflows for both sequencing platforms to allow customers to experience the uniformity of the Twist Bioscience solution.
“Partnering with leading next-generation sequencing companies that are driving the industry forward aligns with our strategy to own the competitive landscape between the sample and the sequencer,” continued Dr. Leproust. “Our unparalleled uniformity encourages customers to sequence more for the same cost, ultimately benefitting patients and the research community with richer data.”
About Twist Bioscience Corporation
Twist Bioscience is a leading and rapidly growing synthetic biology and genomics company that has developed a disruptive DNA synthesis platform to industrialize the engineering of biology. The core of the platform is a proprietary technology that pioneers a new method of manufacturing synthetic DNA by “writing” DNA on a silicon chip. Twist is leveraging its unique technology to manufacture a broad range of synthetic DNA-based products, including synthetic genes, tools for next-generation sequencing (NGS) preparation, and antibody libraries for drug discovery and development. Twist is also pursuing longer-term opportunities in digital data storage in DNA and biologics drug discovery. Twist makes products for use across many industries including healthcare, industrial chemicals, agriculture and academic research.
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Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained herein are forward-looking statements reflecting the current beliefs and expectations of management made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that may cause Twist Bioscience’s actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the risks and uncertainties of the ability to attract new customers and retain and grow sales from existing customers; risks and uncertainties of rapidly changing technologies and extensive competition in synthetic biology could make the products Twist Bioscience is developing obsolete or non-competitive; the retention of employees of acquired companies and the ability of Twist Bioscience to successfully integrate acquired companies and to achieve expected benefits, risks of third party claims alleging infringement of patents and proprietary rights or seeking to invalidate Twist Bioscience’s patents or proprietary rights; and the risk that Twist Bioscience’s proprietary rights may be insufficient to protect its technologies. For a further description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to Twist Bioscience’s business in general, see Twist Bioscience’s risk factors set forth in Twist Bioscience’s Annual Report Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 23, 2021 and subsequent filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof, and Twist Bioscience specifically disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
