74. Culturing Cures: Murali Muthuswamy’s Revolution in Living Medicines

[00:00:00] Erum: Understanding biology, bio literacy is a thing. We need everyone to learn about the opportunities. and what. can be made with biology and then they can, use AI and everything else to help them get to the product, right? We talked about up top, what do consumers need? What do they want? is gonna make a difference for them?

[00:00:22] Erum: hey Carl, how's it going?

[00:00:24] Karl: Iam? Things are going great. We have just posted our hundred and 50th episode on the Grow Everything podcast where we talk about biology as technology. And lemme ask you, how does it feel? 150 episodes in

[00:00:37] Erum: it feels like it happened in a blink of an eye. I don't even know

[00:00:40] Karl: it

[00:00:41] Erum: did. I just felt like I was sleeping and I woke up in 150 episodes.

[00:00:43] Erum: Like, what? What just happened?

[00:00:45] Karl: it's pretty crazy. we did a little bit of promotion on LinkedIn and on social channels, and we put together a graphic that shows all the people that have appeared on the podcast, and it was a pretty incredible group of people.

[00:00:57] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. It took a hot minute to make that, graphic with all those people, but it was made.

[00:01:02] Erum: I know you, you did a lot of that, so thanks, Carl. And, was beautiful to see all those faces. It is a snapshot of. Industry, which is growing. We've accomplished so much. Not just you and I at the podcast, at Messaging Lab, but also the industry has accomplished so much.

[00:01:19] Erum: we also know that our listeners, make decisions based on our podcast. we talked to our friends at GENSPACE who'd run the break into biotech program, and they were like four or five people. Came into the program because they heard your podcast. And I was like, what? Yeah, that's crazy.

[00:01:35] Erum: I was floored. I was like, there's people listening. This is amazing.

[00:01:41] Karl: But we know they listen because, we go to these events and people will walk up to us and say, oh, I listen to the podcast. Or they'll hear us talking and they'll go, oh, Don't you have a podcast? So somehow we're on people's radars, which feels really good.

[00:01:53] Erum: Yeah, yeah. And not only do they. Join Workforce Development Programs, which is what break into biotech is. But they register for conferences. They make business decisions based on insights from the show. they write reports, which we'll get into based on some of our insights. And our audience really values the depth expertise and actionable intelligence, and they engage accordingly.

[00:02:17] Erum: So. Shout out to our audience and special shout out to our LinkedIn network of more than 30,000 biotech and healthcare professionals across 70 plus countries. So hello, hello. Message from Messaging Lab and Grow everything. Thank you so much for listening. 150 episodes. Wow.

[00:02:36] Karl: Thank you for participating, for liking, subscribing, and just being a part of this community.

[00:02:42] Karl: we're on a growth trajectory and we're glad you're along for the ride.

[00:02:46] Erum: Yes, and if other people wanna join us for the ride, we are selecting sponsors to come and share what you're working on, engage our audience, and we are always looking to partner with people, so we have this wonderful community. If you're interested, keep listening to this episode.

[00:03:05] Erum: We're gonna share some ways that you can sponsor the podcast, so stay tuned for that.

[00:03:10] Karl: Awesome. So you, IAM had put some news in our notes for the week. Why don't we talk about the news and then we'll get into the episode.

[00:03:17] Erum: Yeah. So this isn't quite news if you're talking about, news is always like, oh, just, breaking news.

[00:03:23] Erum: This happened three days ago. This just happened. Exactly. This actually happened in August and I didn't see it until recently because, our news media has been so saturated with, Other types of political news. And so this is actually an interesting partnership with between the NSF and Nvidia to enable AI open source models for US scientific innovation.

[00:03:45] Erum: And it is, the US National Science Foundation, the NSF, they're putting, about $75 million in and NVIDIA's putting in $77 million to support the open open multimodal AI infrastructure it's called the OM ai. We'll put a link in the show notes and it's led by the Allen Institute for ai, which is an incredible organization that's really looking at the ability to enable collaboration and create a fully open suite of advanced AI models.

[00:04:16] Erum: open AI isn't open, but. What is, and how do we use it to support the US scientific community, especially in our purview of biotechnology. So, we'll link to the show notes. If you do have a project or a company or organization that leverages AI for scientific research or applications, look into this.

[00:04:37] Erum: We really recommend that you look into this.

[00:04:39] Karl: I mean, we've had a few episodes where we talk about the impact of AI on biotech and synthetic biology, and there's a lot of work being done in that space. So this is interesting. We have had Nvidia on, Vega Shaw, who is at Nvidia working with biotech companies, was on the podcast.

[00:04:56] Karl: Many episodes ago, it might be time to get other AI experts, on the podcast to talk about the impact of AI on biotech and biotech research.

[00:05:04] Erum: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was also looking into, what are some of the, partnerships Invidia has with universities and they're doing all sorts of things to predict, seismic activity.

[00:05:17] Erum: There's work with NYU Tandon to create a. Digital twin of downtown Brooklyn Predict.

[00:05:22] Erum: yeah. To predict what could happen in climate events or, I don't know, like I guess mobility as well could be a part of that, digital twin simulation.

[00:05:30] Erum: So a lot of this is about simulating, as accurate to a degree as possible of what could happen in reality based on other impacts. there's just so much going on with Nvidia. And know it's great, it's good to see how all these universities are taking some of their fundamental scientific knowledge and, ramping it up with, AI solutions.

[00:05:49] Erum: we'll be bringing it to you from the biotech perspective. Another thing too is leverage resources. Everyone thinks, oh, there's no more resources because the government took away all this grant funding, which it did in some regard, but there is still funding available.

[00:06:03] Erum: We mentioned this NSF NVIDIA partnership, with the Allen Institute. So that is an AI perspective for scientific research. But NIH funding is still there. I know there's a psychological reason why people think it isn't because of some grant funding being pulled, but. keep your eyes peeled.

[00:06:21] Erum: not everything went to zero. So see where the pockets of money are for your projects.

[00:06:27] Karl: Awesome. So let's transition and talk about this week's episode, which is a little bit different for us, I would say. what we're gonna talk about is, a report on reports or an episode on reports.

[00:06:40] Karl: And, what, one of the things that we. Do at Grow Everything. And also at Messaging Lab is pay close attention to reports that are coming out on the bio economy. And a lot of the information that is in those reports tends to be very important 'cause people do make decisions whether they're in business or whether they're.

[00:06:56] Karl: writing policy, but it's based on reports that are being written by research organizations, by big consulting firms. in the past we've had, Richard to Hearn of Capgemini come on to talk about engineering biology. They put out a great report beginning of the year, that was very comprehensive, but we've also seen reports from.

[00:07:16] Karl: Boston Consulting Group from McKinsey and, each kind of paints a different picture of what is going on in the bioeconomy and how it's evolving.

[00:07:24] Erum: Yes. Yep. And, we have worked with, BCG on creating a report, which we'll talk about more in this episode. back in the day, the nature co-design report, which we'll link in the show notes and we have some other, support we'll be doing on.

[00:07:38] Erum: Reporting on reports. So let's get to this report on reports.

[00:07:43] Karl: Let's go.

[00:07:47] Erum: today we're doing something different, a report on reports. There has been a wave of studies about the Bioeconomy this past year where the money's flowing, what's working, what's failing, and what we need to do next.

[00:08:00] Karl: The fact of the matter is we've read so many of these and we read 'em all the time with a goal, and We're gonna do is we're gonna unpack what these reports say, what they miss, and what they mean for the future of biology and how that industry is an engine for the planet's economy.

[00:08:16] Erum: So this idea of reports on reports came after someone pointed out that the US government once won the IGN Noble Prize. If you guys know the IGN Noble Prize is, it's when there's something funny that's discovered but meaningful and so they give a prize for, any type of scientific achievement or.

[00:08:35] Erum: Science that has come out that's interesting, but so the US government back in 2012 won the IGN Noble Prize for producing a report about reports. About reports. So yes, we're in prestigious company and if a government can get an IGN Noble prize for meta reporting, figured why not lean in and Do one ourselves with better jokes and fewer footnotes.

[00:08:59] Karl: so we're gonna do like a meta-analysis on these reports, but why don't we first talk about the reports that we're gonna go through?

[00:09:06] Karl: the first report we're gonna look at is SynBioBeta 2025 Investment Trends Report.

[00:09:11] Karl: That report showed that in 2024, investment in synthetic biology rebounded with fewer deals, but with bigger checks. The focus shifted to company's proven products and clear paths to revenue.

[00:09:24] Erum: And then we're also gonna review the World Economic Forum's report with Capgemini about next generation bio innovation. So this argues that biology won't scale through tech alone must deliver cloud. Clear value, so better performance, lower cost, or supply chain resilience to win mainstream adoption, which we love to talk about.

[00:09:43] Karl: so the next report we're gonna look at is one from the Advanced Biotech for Sustainability Coalition, which, did a report with several large companies, including McKinsey, L'Oreal, and other companies. And the report found that projects that advanced biotech could cut up to four gigatons of carbon dioxide and unlock a $1 trillion global market by 2040 if scaled properly.

[00:10:07] Erum: Yeah, that's a good one. I can't wait to dig into that. And then we have Bio and Kearney's Bioeconomy Impact Modeling, which was released in March, 2025. And the report, finds that the US Bioeconomy already generates 210 billion directly And 830 billion, including ripple effects and supports roughly 430,000 jobs for now.

[00:10:30] Karl: I can't wait to get into that one. Then. we looked at the National Security Commission on emerging Bio technologies report. Which warns that the US is falling behind China in biomanufacturing and biological data infrastructure, and it called for a $15 billion, five year national initiative. We've had two guests on the podcast talk about the report, Alexander Titus and Angela Belcher.

[00:10:54] Erum: Yes. Yes. And then, last but not least. the report that wins the title of best title is First Bite Ventures to Buy a Manufacturing Graveyard. And that analyzes more than 60 failed companies, and concludes that most died from economic and operational mistakes, not science.

[00:11:11] Erum: And I'm so glad that someone wrote a report on failure, so I'm excited to, dig into that. So get started. Carl, do you wanna talk about the first one and we can, chit chat about it?

[00:11:22] Karl: Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about Symbio Beta's report. Symbio Beta puts out an investment report every year, and they look at what happened in the previous year. So the report they put out at the beginning of this year showed that funding for synthetic biology projects was up 14% year over year to 12.2 billion.

[00:11:42] Karl: The average deal size is nearly 60% larger. The big conclusion there was that investors favored industrial biotech. Something we talked a lot about on this podcast. So chemicals, materials, and agriculture over speculative platforms. Again, something that we talk a lot about on this podcast, whether platforms or products or processes are gonna win.

[00:12:07] Karl: And the examples that were named in the report included. So who combines bio catalysis and electric As a model for high value, low volume manufacturing, pivot Bio, a company that has scaled microbial nitrogen to thousands of farms. What Pivot has done is they basically spray, microbes onto seeds so that you need less fertilizer to grow those seeds.

[00:12:33] Karl: And ArcHa Bio, a company that is engineering cattle to cut methane emissions.

[00:12:38] Erum: Yeah. And not to be confused with ArcHa, the company that makes personal care and beauty ingredients. that was a spin out of Ginkgo, led by Jaina, A kovich but, it makes sense, right, Carl?

[00:12:49] Erum: being able to do biochemistry, you can create amazing chemicals. not only just through Biomanufacturing, but of course, using cell-free biomanufacturing, and being able to, do that at a very cost competitive way compared to everyday chemical manufacturing.

[00:13:07] Erum: it makes sense, right? For, investors to put money towards these foundational molecules that are needed to the, ingredients of everyday products.

[00:13:19] Karl: So basically what this report is saying that Easy Money's gone, but Patient Capital has finally showed up, and I think that this has played out during the course of this year, where so much money has been moving into AI and AI infrastructure.

[00:13:31] Erum: Yeah. Yep. And Jen's latest partnerships with Dow and a DM show Biology, moving from pilot plants to global supply chains. And then you mentioned Pivot Bio, and that's proof that climate solutions can also be. Profitable, right? So sustainability is table stakes. Now let's talk about high performance and profitability. so Carl, are we seeing biology mature or is it just another hype cycle wearing a lab coat?

[00:14:00] Karl: I don't know. I mean, here we are. It's October, this report came out early in the year. in a way it feels like, 2018 software. but the bigger economy feels more like, the.com bubble with all this money being poured into ai. So the tourists are gone, the builders are staying. I mean, this is something we've seen over and over again.

[00:14:21] Karl: Saw it in software. We've seen it in biotech. So that's where my head is at today.

[00:14:25] Erum: that's great. Okay, so the next report that we wanna dig into, and we had someone from Capgemini on Richard Turn came on a podcast. You spoke to him. I spoke him a little bit until I had technical difficulties, but Capcha and I worked with the World Economic Forum and they wrote this paper about, The next generation bio innovation. So this report warns that biotech often leads with technology not value, which is something again, that we keep saying is that, talk about the end state, right? Technology's great, but people aren't buying technology. They're buying value, the buying a product. it also stated that successful products start with user needs.

[00:15:08] Erum: what are the user needs? Taste, texture, cost, reliability. And then once you understand that you can work backward and then align your technology with what, functionality or need the consumer's searching for or looking for, or maybe they don't even know and you're sharing some, completely new experience with them, that completely changes their lives, right?

[00:15:29] Erum: This is the whole if people back in the day that when we were just riding in horse and buggies. If they were told what type of, advancement they needed for mobility, they would say faster horses, but they wouldn't have known to have actually have a car. Right? same story. And so were discussed in this report were bold threads and modern meadow struggling to compete with cheaper alternatives despite strong science. both of those companies were heavily invested in, and tried different types of products, targeted to different industries and they struggled, right?

[00:16:07] Erum: they're both still around. They're finding their footing, hopefully. and then. also mentioned that, consumer adoption is growing in beauty and food sectors that we know intimately. and that's because performance and the story align and things like bio derived collagen peptides, plant-based colorants are really capturing the minds and what consumers actually need.

[00:16:34] Erum: what do you think about some of these? Points that were made in this report, and I know you had this conversation, more than I did with Richard Thoughts.

[00:16:43] Karl: Yeah, I mean, first I think it's worth even stepping back, a little bit because Capgemini had put out this really comprehensive, engineering biology report, which we cite regularly, it's a very well done, very well research report that shows that so many people are looking for these BioSolutions.

[00:17:02] Karl: But as we say on the podcast, people aren't really looking for sustainability. If it doesn't smell good, tastes good, save you money, or have high performance, sustainability is becoming a very challenging sell. So, this report is really important for highlighting the fact that these companies that had so much invested into them, companies that focused on materials, but then have pivoted into personal care and beauty, they're still having a hard time.

[00:17:27] Karl: again, it goes back to that message of you can't sell sustainability.

[00:17:30] Erum: Yeah, and we know the big CPGs are now piloting bioidentical ingredients where consumers can't tell the difference. Right? It's just, there's biotech vanilla and there's elastin peptides. People don't know the technology behind it. They just know, Hey, taste like vanilla. Okay, these peptides are working and that's it.

[00:17:49] Erum: Right? They don't need to know the technology, they just need to know it works.

[00:17:52] Karl: Yeah. So which one bio-based product that actually outperforms. It that maybe came from, or fossil fuels.

[00:18:01] Erum: Now. This is a good one. I'd say engineered peptides for hair care that deliver better results and consistency, that's what wins. I don't know if one exists. I mean, maybe we should create a company that has unique hair peptides. We'd call it K 19 hair. okay. Let's go into the next report. Carl, I.

[00:18:24] Karl: All right, so this is First Bite. by manufacturing report. You pointed out that this report had a really great, title and, we had, Veronica Breckenridge from First Bite on the podcast a couple months ago, and, this report showed that 80% of failures.

[00:18:42] Karl: In biotech came from biofuels and platform chemicals. So low margin sectors that cost a lot of money to boot up. They have enormous capital costs and problems included, unrealistic cost models, scale up errors, and poor offtake planning.

[00:18:58] Karl: and the examples that, are cited are Amris, Solazyme, me, metabolics. So these are kind of like first generation synthetic biology companies. They were all very strong in research and development, but they were sunk by scale economics. And I think the lessons need to be told over and over again because we see the same mistakes being made.

[00:19:18] Karl: And then survivors like Genomatica, they pivoted to licensing and partnerships instead of building plants alone. this really mirrors today's reality. Investors are really looking for stage capacity, shared infrastructure, and toll manufacturing.

[00:19:33] Erum: Yeah, biotech didn't run outta science it ran outta cash flow.

[00:19:36] Erum: there's a lot of infrastructure that can be reused. know, either, either creating a manufacturing company or you're creating a product company to do both is extremely challenging and we don't need to. Right. Where do you want the money to come from?

[00:19:50] Erum: Right? And, being able to make that decision a, data forward way. put your data hat on. Is it better to do this through B2B or to better to go direct to consumer? So if it's B2B, maybe it is manufacturing, if it's product, work with the manufacturing companies, which Gena did, and create the products that go directly to your customer.

[00:20:12] Erum: And, it's. An exciting model that, I'm super curious about, we've talked about this internally,easy is, not the word to use, Relatively easy.

[00:20:23] Erum: compared to back in the day you did just think, oh, I need to raise $500 million to a pilot plant.

[00:20:34] Erum: and it's like, okay, the math ain't math in, but somehow the vision was what drove investors to put the money in. And then, you start seeing those failures. But I do really appreciate the first bite team coming together, taking a hard look at the failures, taking the lessons learned, because I do believe.

[00:20:52] Erum: Failures are the key to success, right? Like, we had, Glenys Mayor on, formerly of Bio Labs now at So Kettering talk about wouldn't it be great to have a database of failure? So we just don't do it. We don't repeat failure. And so I really, really applaud the first Bite team for writing this report.

[00:21:11] Erum: Thank you so much for it. Carl, I'm gonna ask you, what's the smarter path to scale today?

[00:21:17] Karl: I say, start small. Build your ecosystem or infrastructure, and then sell big. Prove the economics before you start pouring concrete because you might not have to. pour concrete. there's a lot of infrastructure you can leverage and there's a lot of new infrastructure that's being created today that you can take advantage of, which can keep your cos down.

[00:21:38] Erum: Amazing. Amazing. shall we dig into the next report? so the next report is The Advanced Biotech for Sustainability report, so AB four s for short. And this report estimates that by 2040 advanced biotech could abate three to four gigatons of carbon dioxide.

[00:22:00] Erum: Repurpose two to 4 million kilometers of land and save to 500 billion squared of water and build a trillion dollar market across fuels, food and materials. So that's really looking at some very high value markets and going after some of those hard hitting, Climate concerns, going after fossil fuels, going after thingscausing pollution.

[00:22:29] Erum: Let's just leave it at that. so biology could do for climate, what the internet did for communications, but we have to plug it in. Right. And in this report. Some examples I wanna mention are bio-based aviation fuels and compostable plastics. called out as the top five opportunity areas, I was like, what?

[00:22:51] Erum: Okay. Buy base fuels making a comeback. Don't call it a comeback, but it is a comeback. Let's see.

[00:22:57] Erum: And then they also mentioned food fermentation and enzyme based manufacturing among the fastest growing segments, which aligns with, the AYA beta report.

[00:23:08] Erum: Which talked about how a lot of investment went to companies that were making chemicals and materials in agriculture, one of them that uses bio catalysis and electrochemistry. So, also looked to where there are, amongst these reports. What trends we're seeing across them. And we love the fact that they're all pointing towards these advanced chemicals or using, cell-free as a way to make new types of chemicals.

[00:23:37] Erum: It's great. you wanna add some color to this report? Carl, what do you think?

[00:23:41] Karl: I mean, have you noticed, when you purchase an airline ticket that it does give you a CO2 friendly option? Because I've just recently noticed. That. I don't know if that's something new, but, and I know that when we first looked at this report, you pointed out, oh, biobased Aviation fuels. Wow. Where'd that come from?

[00:23:57] Karl: I mean, you just mentioned that too, because we know about the kind of biofuels, disaster that really set up the, synthetic biology industry. But, I think what's interesting about this report is it makes the case that corporate climate rules. Despite this kind of push for deregulation and less regulation are still pushing buyers to seek out environmentally friendly materials and bio-based materials or bio-based options are finally getting the attention they deserve because they actually do reduce carbon. but the question is who gets paid to save the.

[00:24:32] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. And how much carbon emissions need to be removed. Right. one of the things that, we do a lot of rah rah, rah by manufacturing. but one thing we do wanna make clear, we're not saying petrochemicals horrible, you know what I mean? Like, you do need some of 'em. It's just that the extreme dependency is a bit much, we need.

[00:24:51] Erum: all of it to work together. So, we're fans of the petro chemistry, but just, and it got us to where we are today. Let's not forget that a lot of our, economic that we enjoy, for more of the population came because we were able to have, cheaper fuels, more products that are more affordable for people to have.

[00:25:12] Erum: respectable lifestyles, right? it had its place, but we did a little too much. Now we gotta reel it back. We gotta readjust. We have to adjust. So, that's where we are. And, who gets paid for saving the planet? The ones who link impact to profit. If it cuts emissions and cost, it wins.

[00:25:32] Erum: So, gotta do both, we can have our cake and eat it too.

[00:25:36] Karl: I just wanna mention a couple things about this report that I really appreciated. So we talked about, one is that are predicting. an abatement of three to four gigatons of C2 by 2040. We didn't really get into too much detail on that because it starts to get kind of murky, but it is important to note that that is one of the things that bio-based biotech solutions offer, this reduction in carbon emissions, even potentially pulling carbon out of the air.

[00:26:04] Karl: The reason we didn't go too deep into it and rim, you know, this way better than I do, is because the numbers start to get very murky, very fast. People are talking about scales that are, 20, 30, 20, 40 different numbers. Giga, how many gigatons do we emit today? How many gigatons do we need to abate by 2040 by 2050?

[00:26:22] Karl: So we decided to not get into those details. The other thing that I appreciate about this report is it did talk about water, which I don't think it's talked about enough. Water is, you know, one of the new golds. when they talk about these big data centers that are being built for ai, one of the issues they talk about is how much water they require.

[00:26:41] Karl: And then finally, they talk about building a trillion dollar market. I felt like that number was very conservative compared to other reports that we've read in the past. and the numbers of the bioeconomy vary, but I will just say that one of the things that I've heard repeatedly is that in the United States, until the bioeconomy reaches a trillion dollars and we're not there yet, no one's really gonna pay attention to it.

[00:27:03] Karl: We're very close to that. So those are all things that I really appreciate about this AB four s report and, let's talk about the next one.

[00:27:10] Erum: Yeah, let's talk about the next one. So you took a look at this one. We mentioned a little bit about, we had experts on this podcast. Talk about it. Go for it, Carl.

[00:27:18] Karl: Okay, so the next report, the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechs report was charting the Future of Biotechnology. And this one, we've had a couple of people come on the podcast to talk about, how the US is heavily dependent on foreign suppliers for DNA synthesis, reagents, and a lot of biomanufacturing equipment, which is surprising.

[00:27:36] Karl: It recommends a $15 billion, five year national plan for infrastructure, workforce, and secure data networks. and it plays into this idea that if the last century was about computation and oil, this one's about AI and DNA, and we can't afford to lose our leadership in this industry.

[00:27:56] Erum: Well, we are already losing the leadership. If you ever, take a look at what's going on in China, there was all these, that came out recently about. China's force in not only drug development, which is insane in terms of how they're leveraging ai. China's always been. Super fast at manufacturing again, not only for the biopharma side, but also for the bioindustrial side, making all the different ingredients and materials that we talk about.

[00:28:22] Erum: And, there was, someone who wrote on LinkedIn who is, I think Chinese American who goes to China and participates in the conferences there and is just blown away and reports about what he's seeing at these. By manufacturing conferences and they're packed full of people in different companies there.

[00:28:40] Erum: so we do need to gain this leadership, hence why this report is written. And I recommend people going back and listening to the episode with Angela Belcher. we talked about workforce, gotta start younger. You gotta start younger with people. Understanding biology, bio literacy is a thing.

[00:28:56] Erum: We need everyone to learn about the opportunities. and what. can be made with biology and then they can, use AI and everything else to help them get to the product, right? We talked about up top, what do consumers need? What do they want? is gonna make a difference for them?

[00:29:12] Erum: Anyone can understand that, then what tools are they going to use? Are they going to use traditional chemistry or are they gonna use biochemistry? It all works depending on what you're trying to make, right? and so again, this report does highlight China's rapid investment in bio manufacturing zones.

[00:29:30] Erum: They are pouring money into it. Carl, you and I talked about their five year plan and they triple underscore biology and AI as their, beacons for development. and then there were a couple other examples.

[00:29:43] Karl: We've seen that both the United Kingdom and the EU have launched these public private Bio Foundry programs, and the US really needs to define what critical bio infrastructure is. Is it just biomanufacturing infrastructure? What else is it?

[00:29:58] Erum: and so, they've defined some of that in this report what is that infrastructure? only by manufacturing, but by processing. Right? How do you process natural resources, whether they are feedstocks to then feed the microbes that are making the molecules and fermentation?

[00:30:19] Erum: or just other types of resources. specific plants. You know, there's, was it molecular manufacturing in plants? being able to have plants make certain. Molecules. so, we can help them define it next time they write a report, bring us in Roman Carl, grow everything.

[00:30:34] Erum: Podcast. We'll help 'em out.

[00:30:36] Karl: why don't I ask the question, Iran, what do you think? One policy move that can help the Bioeconomy scale?

[00:30:42] Erum: you we're talking about the US government procurement by the bio-based materials. Don't just celebrate them. Don't just say, Hey, good job companies, you guys are doing things over there, you go do it. No purchase it. Government buys so much products. I don't wanna sound, dire, but for the military, for, jails and prisons, which, that's a completely different conversation and I'm, all for reform when it comes to that.

[00:31:04] Erum: But government is a big buyer of products. the materials from these companies.

[00:31:10] Erum: All right. Let's go into the next report. Iam, why don't you kick

[00:31:12] Karl: this one off?

[00:31:13] Erum: Okay, This is the final report, one that kind of slipped through the cracks for me. But then, you know, when we were doing this, I was like, oh wait, there's another report. And this report is from Bio and Kearney. So a, it used to be called AT Kearney. I had worked with them in the past. It's a consulting company and, this report and they looked at data from 2023 that the US buy economy generated 210 billion in direct GDP and 830 billion, including indirect efforts and supported around 430,000 jobs. So that was a great year for, The buy economy, just in terms of growth and, numbers.

[00:31:49] Erum: and most of this has been, again, in industrial buy, manufacturing, agriculture and materials. So, the buy economy isn't the future. It's payroll today. it is actual economy, right? And we always say that, we talk about the bioeconomy, but it's just the economy, it's not the bioeconomy, it's just the economy.

[00:32:06] Erum: Right?

[00:32:07] Erum:

[00:32:07] Erum: and what did you wanna highlight for our listeners from this report?

[00:32:09] Karl: So this report was very practical, which is no surprise because Bio is the biotech industry organization, the big lobbying arm of the biotech industry. And so, an example is something we talk a lot about on this podcast, this idea of using enzymes to replace harsh chemicals in detergents and food processing that, I don't know the exact numbers, but it's huge win.

[00:32:31] Karl: For example, p and G's Tide started using an enzyme that allowed you to, use cold water as opposed to hot. That was a huge plus for the environment, because most of the energy used when you do your laundry is hot water. it also talked about bio-based packaging and textiles that are driving regional growth in the Midwest and in the South.

[00:32:51] Karl: So that I thought was also, super positive. This report argues for better measurement, because contribution still hidden inside.

[00:33:01] Erum: that's right. the hidden contribution of biology is something that. We, learned intimately. we worked with CPG companies and they have been using biotech for many, many years, even from the beginning, whether they used waste products to make different, like soaps for example, or,

[00:33:20] Erum: Candles and they used waste as a resource from the early days and then they have been silently using body manufacturing for unique ingredients haircare products or, skincare products or food and. It's just not being calculated in or recognized as much. So, I love the fact that, Kearney pointed this out because, you always hear, oh, you know, bio manufacturing can't scale 'cause it's gonna cost too much money.

[00:33:45] Erum: Well, it has and it will continue. And if the math doesn't work out, you need to go back to the drawing board and figure it out because there's something, there's one point in your math, there's, there is a variable. you're not optimizing to be able to get the cost down correctly, and you need to figure that shit out.

[00:34:04] Karl: Whoa.

[00:34:06] Karl: yeah. What this report also reminds me is that there are different ways to measure the bioeconomy, and I'm pretty sure that anything you in the United States, we don't count agriculture. We don't count our natural resources. So like all of the, Timberland. We don't count our fisheries And other companies that have done bio economy blueprints, they include those.

[00:34:27] Karl: They value their timber, they value their fisheries, they value their agriculture. So again, this call for better measurement I think is a really good one. and I think it just makes things more confusing for people. How big is the bioeconomy? Well, you said it before the bioeconomy is the economy.

[00:34:44] Karl: And if it's already this big, why don't people realize it?

[00:34:46] Erum: it's because biology hides in plain sight your laundry to your snack bag, it's there. Just open your eyes and then see it as an example of

[00:34:58] Karl: Okay, so as we wrap up this podcast episode on reports. Let's just talk about the bio economy split personality, the contradictions that we saw in these reports, like the bigger theme, like this is our meta-analysis of these reports. what did you think?

[00:35:14] Erum: of course, for us and for a lot of people in this. Industry or the sector. there's big vision. compare that with the small margins. You're talking about chemicals that are cost, less. How do you get it in? So everyone predicts this trillion dollar market, but most companies still fight for unit economics.

[00:35:33] Erum: So do we, square that circle? And I think that's something that, we need to bring someone on to talk about a bit more and how, some of these companies accomplishment, like we need to get solid gen on. It'd be great to talk to them to see how. They continue to, succeed. and another one is, this push and pull from global trade, which is how our economy has been working for many decades versus national security.

[00:35:57] Erum: And that is the talking point. That is what we're all looking at right now. We want to open innovation, yet we worry about buy supply chain dependence. So what does that, look like? how do the people that are writing these reports, 'cause this is really about, how we're coming together to have a discourse, intelligence across an industry and share it so.

[00:36:20] Erum: What makes sense, right. global trade. Okay. there are certain items where it makes sense there's other items where, you could just keep it local and regional.

[00:36:31] Erum: Right. so I think again, it's a very nuanced thing. what is the theme that, you saw that that was, important.

[00:36:37] Karl: I'm gonna. Expand on the global trade versus national security theme a little bit because we talk a lot about distributed biomanufacturing as a solution, and especially with the way the political climate is today. There is this kind of. turn towards isolating the US and there's these tariffs that had been, implemented and so that, feels like that should create more opportunities for localized bio manufacturing and for producing more, items here in North America.

[00:37:06] Karl: Particularly in the United States. And that speaks directly to national security as well. I feel like we could do entire episodes on that. And like we said earlier, we did have both Titus and Angela Belcher to talk about the National Commission on Emerging Biotech. Talk about that.

[00:37:22] Karl: okay, so we produce and purchase locally, or do you produce things locally and sell them internationally? what's the push and pull from global trade and national security when it comes to distributed manufacturing?

[00:37:34] Karl: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really good question. it seems like this administration wants us to produce everything locally and export. But the reality is that we're, I'll say decades behind and it's not really fair. We're, let's just say we're a decade behind where China is, when

[00:37:49] Erum: it's really like probably in the nineties that China really started building their, manufacturing infrastructure and it really didn't take off until the early two thousands. unfortunately, it made it very easy for us to get very dependent on cheap manufacturing, and many American companies enabled that because they were looking for cheaper places to manufacture.

[00:38:07] Karl: And that is one of the challenges with bringing manufacturing back to the us. The US is a very expensive market, costs a lot of money to employ people. I think China's getting more expensive. It's really helped Southeast Asia grow because there are still places that it's cheap to manufacture and who knows what automation and robotization is gonna do to manufacturing.

[00:38:27] Karl: But this idea of localizing, especially essential things, I think speaks to national

[00:38:33] Karl: security.

[00:38:34] Erum: then the, question is what is essential? Right? Is it drugs?

[00:38:37] Erum: we had Christina Smoky of Anthea on who makes. Active pharmaceutical ingredients using biomanufacturing, which could happen anywhere. and those are essential, to some people. so yeah, the concept of essential, like what can we make this, I mean, food of course. and then what kinds of food, right?

[00:38:52] Erum: And that also plays like this final cross report theme is this, sustainability versus convenience. And this also goes, I mean, the reason why we buy so much from China is that it's cheap, it's easy. the supply chains are set up and it's easy to buy something for a dollar versus $5 if it's, similar, the only difference is the brand,

[00:39:09] Erum: so, consumers do want eco-friendly. But they won't pay extra for it. This is something that we talked about. Edward Vic of Synonym, talked about that on, his episode, which is our number one episode right now. that's the push and pull

[00:39:23] Karl: Yeah. And I mean the tension between, greener planet, more sustainable ingredients and technology that shows up in every single report. scaling biology means solving economics. It's not just ethics. It's not just sustainability. You've got solve the economics.

[00:39:40] Erum: Yep. So what's the most important story we're not telling about biology's role in the economy?

[00:39:45] Karl: It's not science fiction anymore. It's infrastructure and it's economics.

[00:39:48] Erum: Yes. Yep, yep, yep. Excellent. Excellent. All right. So let's have some fun, Carl.

[00:40:50] Karl: This was a very serious episode, by the way.

[00:40:53] Erum: Yeah. I mean we just, it's a report and reports. What do you expect? just, we'll loosen up right now, right? We're gonna do something we do with a lot of our guests, recently, and we have these quick fire questions.

[00:41:01] Erum: So,

[00:41:02] Erum: So you can ask the first one, but we'll both answer. we'll go from there. Five questions. Here we

[00:41:06] Erum: go.

[00:41:06] Karl: Okay. Iran, what's one buzzword from these reports that you wish would be banned forever?

[00:41:12] Erum: Yeah. From these reports and many other reports and blogs and, Silicon Valley, the word is disruptive. doesn't disrupt it, decomposes.

[00:41:23] Karl: I would ban platform because everything's a platform until it runs outta cash.

[00:41:28] Erum: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. if biology were a movie genre, what would it be? Sci-fi documentary or romcom.

[00:41:36] Karl: I would normally say sci-fi, but it is a romcom. The lab falls in love with the market, but they're from different worlds.

[00:41:43] Erum: Totally. She's a scientist. He's a supply chain manager. It'll never work until it scales.

[00:41:50] Karl: I don't get how they met because that just is such a weird combo. Okay. Which come first, A trillion dollar bioeconomy, or a billion bio-based products in homes.

[00:42:00] Erum: Billion bioproducts. People will have bio base everything before they realize it.

[00:42:06] Karl: bioeconomy is already in your laundry, it's in your Doritos. It just hasn't gotten the credit yet.

[00:42:11] Erum: Yep. Yep. next one is, if Micros could talk, what headline would they write about us?

[00:42:17] Karl: humans finally discover they've been doing microbes work this whole time.

[00:42:22] Erum: Or Earth's smallest employees? Demand better pr. We got your microbes. We got you. We'll give you the best PR called Messaging Lab.

[00:42:30] Karl: So when people look back in 2050, what do you think they'll say? This era of biology got right.

[00:42:35] Erum: We stopped treating biology as magic and we started treating it like infrastructure.

[00:42:40] Karl: . And we finally learned to collaborate with microbes instead of trying to outsmart them.

[00:42:44] Erum: Yes. All right. Exactly. That's a little fun that we had. these reports prove that Bioeconomy is already here.

[00:42:51] Erum: The next challenge isn't proving biology works. proving it pays.

[00:42:56] Karl: Who are gonna be the ones who grow everything from our

[00:43:04] Erum: Awesome.

[00:43:08] Karl: Alrighty. Rum. That was a lot of fun. Because we've read these reports and talking about them is a little different than, just reading them and really thinking about what they mean. What was your take on us analyzing the reports? Our meta analysis of biotech and the bioeconomy?

[00:43:24] Erum: my take was, you're welcome. You know, it's, you know, listeners.

[00:43:29] Karl: You're welcome. Yeah, yeah.

[00:43:30] Erum: Listeners are welcome.

[00:43:31] Erum: You're welcome to ourselves or thank you to ourselves for, doing that. now I wanna thank, all the people that took the time to look at the bio economy critically, looking at all the inputs, looking at some of the challenges, the, headwinds a tailwind, right?

[00:43:46] Erum: Looking at everything as much as possible, and. A lot of these reports are, through not only, these consulting groups that have a perspective, but they're bringing in experts certain innovators. They're bringing in heads of different organizations that do have this large overview of economy because they have such a big footprint across different markets.

[00:44:10] Erum: So it's great to be able to pull these insights because again, we sat at the top of the episode. We need to make decisions based on data, to the extent that this data is as correct or accurate as can be. one of the, biggest jobs CEOs or executives have is.

[00:44:28] Erum: To make plans they have to get as much information as possible to create that plan and then make decisions as things change. So to be able to have this type of information, especially again, another shout out to the graveyard report, I think being able to talk about failure, which, people have done and, other books and reports to be able to, examine where things went wrong, but.

[00:44:50] Karl: I think for our industry to put it all in one report was, great. Yeah, I mean I think that was a fantastic report. And then the advanced Biotech for Sustainability Coalition report, I thought was also really useful in terms of, really discussing not just the economic benefits of advanced biotechnology, but also the environmental. Benefits, which is something we do talk about here on Grow Everything, but I think it's something that gets neglected, when people talk about the impact of biotechnology and the bioeconomy just generally.

[00:45:20] Erum: Mm-hmm. Yeah. it's always good to see, the big overview and then how do you fit into that, landscape of. Economic growth of technological innovation. then you make decisions on, for, especially in the world of buying, manufacturing, what kind of feedstocks, what does bio processing look like?

[00:45:38] Erum: How do you extract value? we're big fans of the waste of value. story. We've probably talked about a lot in this episode. not even the story, but the actual, function, waste of value. Waste is manmade thing. There is no waste in nature. Everything's reused and recycled.

[00:45:54] Erum: So can we bring that thinking into our industrial processes and the way that we make products? so I, think we had a good time. It was great to read these reports. It was great to be a little silly about them. I think, just to shed some light, not only on the. Key takeaways, but, make it a little bit more digestible, especially for people that aren't in the space and want to come into the world of the buy economy.

[00:46:19] Erum: again, we know a lot of listeners the buy economy isn't their day to day, but they're curious and they want to learn and hopefully some, something sparked their interest from today's episode that they can. Either come to a conference, learn more, join the break into biotech program, or do something cool.

[00:46:37] Erum: So, hopefully everyone enjoyed this episode.

[00:46:40] Karl: I will say, there are new reports coming out all the time and we try to keep our pulse on what those are. If there's a report that you found interesting that you think we should read or should mention, please let us know. I know that as we were recording last week, there was a new report that came out from the Hoover Institute.

[00:46:58] Karl: I, drew Andy and a team of researchers from, Stanford talking about biosecurity, which is something that's very real and something for people to consider. So that's something that we didn't cover in this podcast, but it could be something that we end up talking about going forward. So there is new reports coming out all the time, but we'd love to hear what you guys are reading and what has impacted your thinking.

[00:47:20] Erum: Yeah, absolutely. Maybe we can get Drew Andy on the podcast. It's been too long. 150 episodes. Drew. Come on. Come on. Yeah,

[00:47:27] Karl: I know. He was waiting for this report to be done, so now it's not time for us to reach back out to him.

[00:47:31] Erum: Perfect.

[00:47:32] Erum: Perfect. And for those that are listening that want to collaborate with us on the podcast or sponsor, we talked about how you can join the Grow Everything Movement. We like to think this is a movement. let us know. this isn't just, you coming and doing an ad on the podcast.

[00:47:51] Erum: It's really about being a partner and helping shape a conversation on the future of biology as technology. And so quick things that we would do, 32nd ads are very common. we'd also like to talk about your, product or your innovation. and we like to. tell the whole world about what we're doing at Grow Everything.

[00:48:12] Erum: So you could be a part of that. In the way that we talk about Grow Everything to the public is through of course social media. LinkedIn's a big one. Again, we have such a huge network on LinkedIn. we are on Instagram or on YouTube. We're on. X. Sometimes, depending on, we're starting a, who's behaving?

[00:48:33] Karl: Yeah. And we're also starting a substack, so Yes. You know? Yes.

[00:48:37] Erum: Look out for that. Yeah. Getting out there. and we love to have you, we love partnerships, we love collaboration. and again, this whole thing is to spark conversations about the future of biology. So come on board, join the ride. We have a good time here.

[00:48:52] Erum: I grow everything.

[00:48:53] Karl: All right. I think that's the episode.

[00:48:55] Erum: Yes, absolutely. stay tuned, like, and subscribe. You have to say that and reach out to us, give you plenty of fodder to reach out to us, talk to us about reports, or even just let us know what's on your mind that we need to pay attention to.

[00:49:09] Erum: Thanks so much for listening.

[00:49:10] Karl: Thank you. Bye.