PRESS RELEASE

June 1, 2023

JGC HD and Bacchus to Jointly Promote Integrated Biofoundry®
Business for the Growth Market of Biomanufacturing– Establishment of a one-stop system from microbial development
and improvement to production process development –JGC Holdings CorporationBacchus Bio Innovation Co., Ltd.
JGC Holdings Corporation (hereinafter JGC HD) and Bacchus Bio Innovation Co. Ltd.
(hereinafter Bacchus) have announced that they will jointly pursue integrated biofoundry®

business, which will support the growth market of biomanufacturing by providing one-stop
service from microbial development and improvement to production process development.

1. Biomanufacturing
Biomanufacturing promotes a circular economy by producing a variety ofsubstances through the creation of smart cells*1. With applications likely to expand
beyond medicine and healthcare to sectors including materials, energy, and food, thescale of this market is expected to grow to a level of 200 trillion yen by 2030 according
to estimates of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

2. Aims of the collaboration
As we work toward our long-term management vision (2040 Vision), JGC HD
continues to promote commercialization of technologies relevant to the environment
under the leadership of the Sustainability Co-Creation Unit. Biotechnology is a segmentof focus. Group biomanufacturing resources include technologies for scaling up
processes and for optimal culture tank design, with the former honed over many years ofprocess development for the energy sector and the latter refined through life science
projects. In particular, gas-handling techniques developed through oil and gas projects
give the JGC Group a competitive edge in applications which CO2 is used as a raw

material.
Bacchus is a biofoundry*2 that applies and subsequently refines fundamental
technologies and expertise from advanced R&D on synthetic biology and otherdisciplines at Kobe University and elsewhere. The company’s data-driven smart-celldevelopment cycles of DBTL*3 integrate robotics and AI/IT technologies. With thistechnology, a platform is being built to produce a variety of target substances throughrapid microbial breeding, and ultimately, biomanufacturing will support a circular
economy.
®

Integrated biofoundry business combining this expertise of both companies would
provide one-stop service from developing and improving microbes to scaling upbioreactors and developing production processes, which would reduce the decades-longbiomanufacturing stage from microbial development to commercialization to less than
1/10 of the usual time, in turn significantly accelerating launches and cutting costs toencourage widespread adoption in society.
Bacchus will also expand operations through this collaboration, up to the stage ofprocess implementation. The company’s original microbial development platform, whichenables production of an array of substances, will be expanded to a platform linked toprocess development by JGC HD. As Bacchus gains a broader business foundation, thecompany will be providing this technical innovation around the world.
®

JGC HD intends to establish these integrated biofoundry operations throughlicensing, as a non-EPC business in line with business model transformation in the 2040
Vision and part of a diversified revenue structure.

3. Initiatives in a joint project of four companies
As announced previously, JGC HD and Bacchus have begun working with Kaneka
Corporation and Shimadzu Corporation to develop microbial polymer synthesis using
CO2 as a direct raw material*4. This work was selected as a NEDO Green Innovation
Fund project in response to NEDO’s public call for promotion of carbon recycling using
CO2 as a raw material in biomanufacturing.
In this joint project of the four companies, JGC HD and Bacchus are establishing®
and demonstrating the integrated biofoundry – a one-stop service for breeding
microbes that produce a variety of useful substances from CO2, scaling up this®

technology, and developing production processes. The integrated biofoundry issummarized below.
Bacchus•Developing and improving the world’s first IT/AI-driven rapid breeding platform forgas-fermenting microbes, through internal DBTL cycles.

•Developing and improving a high-speed, high-precision evaluation system for gasfermenting microbes, linked to processes from breeding to production, incollaboration with Shimadzu Corp.

JGC HD•

Preparing a bench-scale facility for operation in FY2025 and pilot plant in FY2027.

•Preparing bioreactors at the bench-scale facility ranging from a few liters to several
hundred liters.

•Preparing bioreactors at the pilot-scale facility with a capacity of several cubicmeters (several thousand liters).

•Establishing safe and highly efficient gas fermentation measurement and evaluation
systems at the bench and pilot-scale facility, in collaboration with Shimadzu Corp.

4. Future initiatives by JGC HD and Bacchus
As the four companies’ joint project continues, JGC HD and Bacchus will also be
developing a broader range of microbes capable of transforming various other raw
materials besides CO2 into a variety of substances needed in society, as thecompanies propose and implement the shortest paths to commercialization for®
customers. By establishing this integrated biofoundry business, the two companies
will lower the barriers for entry into biomanufacturing and encourage adoption in a wide
range of applications in society. The companies aspire to show leadership in global
biomanufacturing with domestically developed technologies.

*1: Cells that have been carefully modified for efficient mass-production of target substances.
*2: Microbial development platform for creating microbes with specific functions enabling efficient
production of useful substances.
*3: Development cycle consisting of designing/synthesizing genes that express desired functions based on
information about microbial genomes, metabolic pathways, and other details (Design), creating
microbes that carry these genes (Build), testing whether the genes express the desired functions(Test), and analyzing/learning from the data obtained (Learn) to apply the knowledge in further designof metabolic pathways and so on. Bioinformatics, which combines life and information sciences, isemployed in the cycles, along with robotics and digital technologies.
*4: Further details are available in the joint press release published on March 22, 2023.
https://www.jgc.com/en/news/assets/pdf/20230322.pdf

Contacts
Akihiro YamagamiCorporate Communication GroupJGC HOLDINGS CORPORATION
E-mail: yamagami.akihiro@jgc.com