Partnership Overview

Zylidac Bio, a fully integrated biologics CDMO within the Zydus Lifesciences Limited group, and Prolific Machines, a biotechnology company advancing biologics development and manufacturing through integrated optogenetics-enabled solutions, have announced a partnership to scale Prolific's platform from early development through GMP production. Both companies are headquartered in Emeryville, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Technology Description

Prolific's technology uses light to control protein expression in engineered cell lines, enabling substantial gains in productivity and product quality. The platform combines:

  • Optogenetics-enabled cell lines
  • Illumination systems compatible with standard bioreactors
  • AI-driven process optimization
  • Advanced analytics

The technology is particularly useful for difficult-to-express proteins including multi-specific antibodies, fusion proteins, cytokines and other complex modalities. Prolific has reported a record-breaking productivity milestone of 21 g/L in a 15-day intensified fed-batch CHO run for a monoclonal antibody (mAb) at small scale, along with up to three-fold titer increases for other complex formats.

Partnership Structure and Scaling Plan

Under the agreement:

  • Zylidac Bio will first complete a tech transfer of Prolific's process at 50 liter scale to reproduce Prolific's results at the Zylidac site
  • The companies plan to subsequently scale client programs to 250 liters, and into GMP manufacturing scale
  • Prolific's illumination hardware will work seamlessly with Zylidac's existing bioreactors, eliminating the need for customers to build new manufacturing infrastructure

Strategic Benefits

The partnership creates an end-to-end development and manufacturing pathway for Prolific's clients, spanning early development through commercial-scale supply. Programs can start with cell line development at Prolific and move seamlessly to Zylidac for:

  • Scale-up
  • Drug substance and drug product manufacturing
  • Fill-finish
  • Packaging

Facility Details

Zylidac operates from an 83,000-square-foot facility in Emeryville, California, which enables taking a molecule from cell line development through drug substance and drug product manufacturing, fill-finish, labeling and secondary packaging.

Management Commentary

Deniz Kent, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Prolific Machines stated: "After demonstrating success at development scale with industry-leading yields across mAbs and difficult-to-express proteins, the next step is scaling the technology to GMP production for clinical and commercial supply. We are very pleased to partner with Zylidac, with a proven team and a great new facility in immediate proximity to our labs in Emeryville."

Steve Lavezoli, Chief Commercial Officer of Zylidac commented: "Our teams visited each other's labs early on, and it was clear the capabilities were highly complementary. Prolific focuses on early-stage cell line development work, while we offer the process development, scale-up and GMP capacity required for later stages. We built our Emeryville site to take a molecule from cell line to finished product."

Company Background

Zydus Lifesciences Limited is an innovation-led life-sciences company with leadership positions across pharmaceuticals and consumer wellness, employing 30,000 people worldwide, including 1,500 scientists engaged in research and development.