Optimvia and Ginkgo Bioworks announced a partnership to improve the manufacturing efficiency of biosynthetic heparin, an essential medicine currently produced from industrial animal agriculture. Under the partnership, Optimvia seeks to leverage Ginkgo's cell and enzyme engineering platform, as well as its fermentation process development expertise, to rapidly improve the performance of Optimvia's biosynthetic heparin manufacturing technology. Ginkgo serves customers across industries seeking to develop new and better products using biotechnology, including partnerships that aim to improve manufacturing processes and strengthen supply chains of key medicines.

Heparin is a life-saving drug that prevents blood clots and is classified as an essential medicine by the World Health Organization; producing non-animal derived heparin is intended to be the proof of principle for Optimvia's platform technology for the synthesis of sulfated glycans. Enabling enzymatic manufacturing could create supply chain diversity and reduce or eliminate the need for high volume extraction of heparin from porcine intestines.