Synthetic biology has brought many breakthroughs to the biotherapeutics space over the last decade. The dropping cost of sequencing and precision genome editing has paved the way for personalized medicine. At the same time, generative AI technology has enabled the designing of antibodies with a much higher clinical success rate. Yet, scientists’ ingenuity is still challenged by the laws of biology. All biologics are susceptible to unpredictable degradation rates and immune responses, in addition to being constrained to the 20 natural amino acids that make up these therapeutics.

But now, one company is challenging that paradigm. Pearl Bio, a synthetic biology company backed by Khosla Ventures, has recently emerged from stealth mode with a hefty IP portfolio of 24 patents that protect their groundbreaking technology: a genetically recoded organism. With it, Pearl Bio is creating entirely new classes of materials for smart biologics.