NEWS
Livent to supply GM
Livent has signed a sourcing agreement , under which it will supply General Motors ( GM ) with battery-grade lithium hydroxide for six years from 2025 . GM intends to use this in its battery cathodes , which will power electric vehicles such as the recently unveiled Chevrolet Blazer EV ( pictured ), the Chevrolet Silverado EV , the GMC Hummer EV and the Cadillac Lyriq . The material will be made primarily from lithium extracted at Livent ’ s brine-based operations in South America . Over the course of the agreement , Livent will increasingly supply GM from its manufacturing facilities in the US , with the goal of transitioning all of its downstream lithium hydroxide processing for GM to North America . Both firms have targeted 2040 to achieve carbon neutrality .
Ginkgo Bioworks acquires Zymergen
Cell engineering company Ginkgo Bioworks has acquired the troubled synthetic biology specialist Zymergen for a market capitalisation of $ 300 million . It will now look for “ strategic alternatives ” for the new drug discovery business once this is complete . Both boards have approved . Ginkgo , which does not make its own products and which went public in May 2001 as part of a $ 2.5 billion merger , said that it plans to integrate Zymergen ’ s core automation and software into its foundry for designing living cells . It will continue Zymergen ’ s ongoing cost restructuring , including reducing employee numbers , though the core technical team will be kept on to add to its key capabilities . Zymergen had raised over $ 1 billion in VC funding before a $ 500 million IPO in April 2021 . However , CEO Josh Hoffman left only three months later and the company ’ s shares fell by 75 % after it revealed that it had no chance of making any revenues in that year or in 2022 . Early in 2022 , under the leadership former Illumina CEO Jay Flatley , Zymergen announced plans to use its platform and the world ’ s largest metagenomics database to create a drug discovery business focused on precision oncology medicines . This will now be sold off .
Bachem automates SPPS
Bachem , the world market leader in peptides , has automated and digitalised one of its core business processes , solid-phase peptide synthesis ( SPPS ). The company describes this as the start of its journey to Industry 4.0 . The process is described in detail on the company website ( www . bachem . com / news / bachem-journey-to-industry-4-0 /). This , Bachem said , that means that “ operations can be carried out with minimal human intervention , thus improving the reliability of the process , reproducibility of results and safety , while significantly increasing the costeffectiveness of operations ”. Equipment utilisation will be optimised , while operating and personnel times will be heavily reduced so that new projects can be taken on . The company has also invested in the digitalisation of the production process so that documentation can be conducted paper-free . “ Furthermore , we can attain improved first-time-right rates , data analytics by implementing a plant information system , and higher data safety and integrity ,” it stated . Other steps towards automating commercial-scale SPPS include the first Bachem robot-operator , BALU . This handles the containers with the amino acid powders and transfer powder into the activator vessels for 150L SPPS reactors , without any operator involvement . It can also clean the amino acid transfer port to prevent cross-contamination . The automated SPPS process also features process analytical technology , which performs inline analytics after key steps . This removes the need for manual in-process controls and provides a better control of critical process parameters , Bachem stated . It also reduces the need for operator involvement and leads to higher reproducibility with minimised chemical side reactions .
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