Constructive Bio Raises £43M to Commercialise Expanded Genetic Code Technology
September 24, 2024
Constructive Bio, the Cambridge-based synthetic biology company, has raised £43.2 million in a funding round led by Ahren Innovation Capital. The round also includes Fine Structure Ventures, +ND Capital, OMX Ventures, and Paladin Capital Group, alongside existing angel investors.
The company was founded by Professor Jason Chin, a world-leading researcher at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and a pioneer of genetic code reprogramming. Chin’s laboratory developed the foundational technology that allows organisms to be engineered with expanded genetic codes — incorporating non-natural amino acids into proteins in ways that are impossible with the standard 20 amino acids used by all life on Earth. Constructive Bio was spun out to translate this research into commercial applications.
The implications are wide-ranging. By expanding what proteins and polymers can be built, the company can create molecules with entirely new chemical properties: enzymes with novel catalytic activities, biomaterials with superior mechanical characteristics, and therapeutics with enhanced stability or targeting that conventional biology cannot produce. The company is targeting pharmaceutical, materials, and industrial biotechnology markets.
The raise follows a period of significant momentum for synthetic biology as an asset class, with investors increasingly convinced that biological manufacturing can compete with and eventually displace petrochemical and conventional synthesis routes for a broad range of products. Constructive Bio’s grounding in fundamental science and its access to the MRC LMB’s deep research ecosystem represent a significant competitive moat.
The funding will support team growth, laboratory buildout at its Cambridge base, and the development of the company’s first commercial product programmes.
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