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Customer Problem

The cloning process consists of several individual steps, each with its own equipment and machinery. It is complex, yet still requires a remarkable amount of human intervention. This results in errors, inconsistencies, and an overall delay in meeting significant synthetic biology milestones. Our team seeks to minimize this “human intervention” element by designing, prototyping, and commercializing an automated cloning system.

Our Solution

Our flagship product, ModuLab, is an automated system designed to optimize cloning, the underlying process of synthetic biology. The ultimate goals of ModuLab are to minimize error, maximize efficiency and provide synthetic biologists with feedback on every stage of the cloning process.

Direct Competition

Because of the relative youth of synthetic biology, there are currently no products that are able to fully conduct the cloning protocol from start to finish without human intervention. We could, however, experience competition from device manufacturers that produce some of the individual components of our system. As per our own research, the closest product to ModuLab is the Freedom EVO® Expression Workstation produced by Tecan Group Ltd.

Indirect Competition

Indirect competition to the field of synthetic biology as a whole is high, given other technologies that have been around for decades. In the specific niche market within which Vivosynth is positioned, however, such competition is negligible, because of the relative nonexistence of methods to fully automate the cloning protocol.

Future Competition

Future competition will likely come in the form of new advances in robotics and automation that will further optimize cloning. Vivosynth is uniquely suited to adapting to these new advances because of our close ties to the University of Illinois and our ability to modify our product(s) as and when it needs

Competitive Advantage

Our product, ModuLab, would be unique in its ability to conduct the entire cloning protocol from start to finish without human intervention. As far as we know, there are no products capable of doing this. We believe such a product would dramatically increase the rate at which synthetic biology research and manufacturing progresses over the next decade. The product is also unique because it will be able to adapt to automate any lab machinery.

Industry Profile

The global synthetic biology market is estimated to grow to $4.5 billion over the next three years. This is due to major developments in biomedicine, pharmaceutical drug synthesis, energy and environmental research, biomaterials, nanotechnology, and biosecurity. There have been significant investments in the industry by companies such as Amyris Inc, GeneScript, Bayer, and Blue Heron Biotechnologies. Additionally, developments in DNA synthesis and sequencing technologies and bioinformatics have catalyzed the progress of synthetic biology ever since the creation of the first synthetic cell in 2010. Synthetic biology is being recognized around the world as an emerging technology that has the potential to provide solutions to energy and food shortage, pollution, infectious diseases, and even climate change. The following diagram depicts the distribution of the global synthetic biology market share, as of 2011:

Marketing Strategy

Vivosynth will adopt a two-step marketing plan for commercializing ModuLab. It involves the systematic dissemination of our technologies to academic and research institutions at highly discounted rates, followed by the targeted selection of pharmaceutical companies and chemical manufacturers with our final full-price system. Intellectual property protection for our design will be obtained prior to the execution of our sales strategy.

Next, the company will look to enter into distribution agreements for the registration and sales of its products in the United States, and eventually foreign countries. These distribution agreements will take the form of contracts with existing manufacturers of biotechnology devices, in order to achieve economies of scale.

Vivosynth will also actively pursue online advertising, advertise our products at biotechnology oriented trade shows, and release a monthly newsletter to keep potential and current customers updated about product developments.

Our business model has currently been implemented through the model creation phase. Next steps include cultivating relationships and licensing our technology to existing biotechnology device manufacturers.