21st.BIO unveiled a new pilot plant facility in its Danish headquarters, designed to support companies upscale their bioproduction.  

21st.BIO provides services ranging from strain construction to industrial production upscaling to customers worldwide. Combining world-class industrially proven technology with fermentation capacity, the company will help customers get to scale faster, in a risk-mitigated and cost-effective way. 

Why do we need pilot facilities? Upscaling mistakes cost a lot of money and time 

"In this industry, upscaling mistakes cost a lot of money and time," explains Thomas Schmidt, co-founder, and CEO at 21st.BIO. "For our customers, it's all about getting the next step right. The ability to increase productivity when also moving up in scale is what distinguishes good from great." 

21st.BIO offers this pilot facility to the market to facilitate and accelerate the step between internal lab-scale fermentation and large-scale production. 21st.BIO's pilot construction and deep experience are ideal to define the important parameters and equipment needed for optimal large-scale production of proteins via fermentation. This will, on top of the best fermentation protocols, for example also help customers select the best CMO for individual project needs and limit the risk of costly failures. 

21st.BIO's pilot facility is designed for industrial production upscaling 

The facility and all processing equipment are state-of-the-art, with much equipment designed for 21st.BIO.  

"Our goal with this pilot was to build a mini factory, to best prepare customers for large scale industrial production. We therefore wanted the process equipment to mimic what customers will find in their next step with large-scale biomanufacturing – only downsized to a pilot scale," explains Thorvald Ullum, Chief Technology Officer at 21st.BIO. He adds, "Our customers work alongside our experts in the pilot plant to test various process aspects as well as build skills and confidence for their own large-scale production." 

With over 3000 liters of fermentation capacity, the facility offers a full range of capabilities, equipment, and competences to help customers optimize their own specific processes. The pilot plant is focused on scaling up the production of recombinant proteins and peptides with applications in nutrition, food and beverages, agriculture, biomaterials, and biopharma.  

The pilot plant is designed to enable strong collaboration between 21st.BIO and customer teams during scaling. The facility is strategically located in the same building as the company's strain development laboratories, allowing for joint work on further improving the customers' production strains and fermentation processes. 

21st.BIO's pilot welcomes established industry leaders in ingredient manufacturing as well as early-stage startups.