Synonym Launches TEA Scaler Tool To Catalyze Biomanufacturing Growth

Synonym, a leader in designing, developing, and managing commercial-scale biomanufacturing facilities, has launched Scaler — the first free online techno-economic analysis (TEA) tool exclusively for fermentation.

The creation of Scaler is geared towards propelling the growth of biomanufacturing. Synonym says Scaler can help businesses forecast their operational and production expenses at an industrial scale.

The tool simplifies the process for businesses to comprehend the requirements to construct and operate at a scale that could bring their bio-products to the mass market.

The tool follows Synonym’s $6.3 million Pre-Seed funding round last October.

Forecasting manufacturing costs

The inception of Scaler is Synonym’s answer to the complex and costly challenge of forecasting commercial-scale manufacturing costs, a hurdle often faced by businesses in this space. The initiative is freely available to the synthetic biology community. And Synonym says it aims to demystify techno-economic analysis, facilitating companies to plan their commercial trajectories and manufacturing strategies effectively.

“Fermentation holds immense potential across many different applications from food to materials and chemicals,” the company said in a post shared to Medium. “In order to unlock this potential, companies must build long-term plans, including a manufacturing strategy, to accurately forecast their costs of production. But determining commercial-scale manufacturing costs has been a complex and costly challenge that companies in this space have always faced.”

Scaling fermentation tech

Scaler’s initial launch supports techno-economic modeling for aerobic, aseptic fermentation processes. Synonym’s team intends to incorporate more technologies and molecule types into Scaler over time, solidifying its place as the market’s most comprehensive, free TEA tool.

Scaler allows users to adjust more than 50 parameters in their models, involving variables linked to fermentation, feedstock, media, downstream processing, financing assumptions, among others. Users are then provided with a bespoke report containing key insights about their process, including capital expenditure and cost of goods sold breakdown, sensitivity analysis, bankability analysis, co-location analysis, and facility sizing matrix, among other critical details.

The development of Scaler is an integral part of Synonym’s broader vision, the company says. After the launch of Capacitor.bio last year, a directory cataloging all existing fermentation capacity, Synonym concluded that the current capacity is insufficient.

Large-scale biomanufacturing infrastructure requires benchmarks and underwriting which are currently non-existent in synthetic biology. Synonym says tools like Scaler are instrumental in establishing a new asset class in biomanufacturing infrastructure, providing crucial metrics and milestones that potential investors need to consider.