NETHERLANDS- Dutch animal nutrition company, Nutreco, has acquired a minority stake at microbiome innovation company, BiomEdit, to further its ‘Feeding the Future’ agenda through innovative production of animal feeds additives.
Founded in April 2022, BiomEdit, focuses on the discovery and development of animal health products that leverage microbiome science to improve animal health, animal protein production and livestock disease monitoring.
The company began with contributions of assets and technology from Elanco and Ginkgo Bioworks and a successful $40M Series A funding round with Ferment, Viking Global Investors, Anterra Capital.
Just recently, the two companies entered into a ground-breaking, long-term strategic research and commercial partnership to develop novel feed additives developed through microbiome technology.
“Through this investment, we are reinforcing the unique collaboration that brings together BiomEdit’s state-of-the-art microbiome discovery platform and Nutreco’s customer access and distribution capabilities,” said Fulco van Lede, CEO Nutreco.
In recent years, studies into the gut microbiome have led to a basic understanding of their role in human and animal health and in how foods are digested in the gastrointestinal tract.
This had driven growth in global animal microbiome market which was valued at US$5.75 billion in 2021 and is now expected to reach US$ 12.4 Billion by 2030
To take advantage of this opportunity, the two companies intend to collaborate in the discovery, development and commercialisation of Biome-actives developed using BiomEdit’s advanced microbiome science and bioinformatics platform.
Nutreco noted that these novel feed additives address the health and sustainability challenges of today’s animal producers, for aquaculture, poultry, swine and cattle.
“We believe that mining the microbiome to find microbial functions that will benefit the animal’s physiology will unlock real sustainable progress for the welfare, health, and productivity of farm animals,” explains David Bravo Nutreco’s Chief Science Officer.
According to BiomEdit, 20% of animal production is lost to diseases, most of which are preventable.
This kind of application of microbiomes is bound to improve the quality of animal feeds with the additives produced, which will then improve animal health, and promote sustainability in animal protein production.
“By leveraging BiomEdit’s advanced microbiome discovery platform and bench of deep experts together with Nutreco’s expertise and commercial deployment capabilities, we will launch novel feed additive products that address some of the most important problems in animal health, sustainability, and food security,” Aaron Schacht, BiomEdit CEO, said.
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