InnovationRx: Making The Pharma Supply Chain More Resilient

Forbes September 20, 2023
Katie Jennings and Alex Knapp

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Christina Smolke is brewing the key ingredients that go into medicines by the vatful. These vats hold 120,000 liters (roughly 31,700 gallons). During five days of fermentation, “the yeast are producing enough drug ingredients to produce over 100 million doses of medication,” Smolke, cofounder and CEO of synthetic biology startup Antheia, said today at the Forbes Sustainability Summit. It would take around 10 square miles of growing medicinal plants to reap the same amount, she said – not to mention significantly shrinking the amount of time from years to days. Antheia’s first products are thebaine and oripavine, both of them key components in pain...

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