Back in June, we announced that we had launched commercial scale production of cultured CBG and had amended our agreement in order to enable Cronos to commercialize cannabinoids ahead of reaching the originally stated productivity targets. In that press release, we wrote that Cronos Group expected that the final productivity target for CBG will be achieved prior to September 2021.
Today, I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve achieved that productivity target for the commercial-scale production of CBG! Reaching this productivity target for the strain producing the cannabigerolic acid (CBGA) molecule will support Cronos Group’s planned CBG product launch this fall. As a result of achieving this milestone, Cronos Group will issue to Ginkgo approximately 1.5 million common shares.
The CBGA molecule will be the fifth product going to market that has directly utilized the Ginkgo platform.
We’ve previously enabled or improved the commercial production of three cultured ingredients for our partners in the flavors and fragrances industry as well as for Aldevron when we improved the production efficiency for their vaccinia capping enzyme used in mRNA vaccine manufacturing.
Cell programming can enable access to rare and important molecules found in nature, including cannabinoids and many other valuable products. We’re proud to be able to help many different companies across industries develop strategies for using biology to innovate new products. We’re thrilled to see the progress our partnership with Cronos Group has made in the three years we’ve worked together and consider it a demonstration of how much can be accomplished when a leading-edge company leverages our platform.
