Swiss biotech Planetary has entered a strategic partnership (MOU) with global imaging technology company Konica Minolta to optimise microbial fermentation.

Through the partnership, the companies will develop and implement advanced sensing, artificial intelligence and bioprocess data-driven solutions to optimise the control of fermentation processes in real-time. Through these processes, the companies hope to detect process anomalies, control growth parameters and increase productivity whilst decreasing lost production batches.

By teaming up with Konica Minolta, Planetary plans to bring these technologies to market and offer them to bioproduct manufacturers globally, increasing productivity and reducing the overall cost of production.

Ryutaro Mori, corporate VP and chief innovation officer at Konica Minolta, said: "With our expertise combined, I believe this MOU can help us explore further avenues to strengthen our relationship and move toward a direction to solve the true bottleneck of the biomanufacturing industry at a global scale."

David Brandes, co-founder and CEO of Planetary, added: “Conventional food and material production systems are being disrupted by fermentation-based biomanufacturing. The shift started with high-value items and is now finding its way into commoditised products. To achieve price parity, fit-for-purpose production sites need to be designed, strain performance optimised, bioprocesses innovated, controlled and automated."

He continued: "Konica Minolta and Planetary are in a pole position to jointly harness real-time AI and bioprocess data-driven sensing solutions which will reduce cost of goods sold by an additional 20-30%.”

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