Yokogawa says it has acquired all shares of Insilico Biotechnology AG, a Stuttgart, Germany-based developer and provider of bioprocess software and services. Fostering the development of the bioeconomy is reportedly one of the priority issues within Yokogawa’s sustainability goals, and in line with that the company aims to leverage this acquisition to build total bioprocess offerings that support biopharmaceutical development through to manufacturing.
Driven by developments such as the COVID-19 pandemic, demand continues to grow for biopharmaceuticals that have fewer side effects and can be used to treat patients with rare and intractable conditions, according to Yokogama. In contrast with the production of chemically synthesized general-purpose pharmaceuticals, the overall cost of biopharmaceuticals is higher, and the complex cell cultivation process required to efficiently and stably obtain the target proteins demands rigorous quality control measures that pose significant challenges with mass production.
The cells cultivated in a bioreactor are immense in number. As each of these cells generate the material that form the active ingredients in pharmaceuticals, it is necessary to monitor their individual metabolic reactions, according to the company. The real-time visualization and analysis of any environmental factors such as changes in pH and dissolved oxygen concentration are also very important. As such, it has reportedly been extremely difficult to carry out cell production by controlling the complex cell reaction systems with a large number of set parameters.
Insilico’s digital twin technology uses an advanced hybrid model formed from a mechanistic model of the unique characteristics of an intracellular metabolic network and a data-driven model constructed from process data using the machine learning process. As well as accelerating what until now has been a multiple-year development process, prediction and simulation also enable the acquisition of a deep understanding of the metabolism process, according to the company. Because this offering enables the construction of metabolism models for bacteria and many other kinds of cellular organisms, it can also be used in a wide variety of applications related to foods, chemicals and other products that utilize biotechnology.
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