Project description and overview:

Many people suffer from infectious, inflammatory, and cardiovascular diseases. Protein-based drugs are the fastest growing class of drugs for the treatment of these diseases in humans and other diseases in animals. The numbers of people with diseases such as diabetes are growing, and while new technologies are making proteins easier to produce, the current methods of production of proteins for pharmaceutical applications are predicted to fall short of future demand.

Algae is an alternative basis for the manufacture of these protein compounds. Existing algae production systems are capable of producing only 12 (out of a possible 5 million) algae species in GMP compliant facilities. Production limitations restrict the potential discovery and commercialisation of high value natural products and impede the viability for algae to be used in pharmaceutical, agrochemical and food applications. In addition, the contamination risks are much higher due to the inability to maintain tightly controlled growing facilities, primarily due to the size of facilities required to maintain adequate supply.

This project aims to scale up Provectus Algae’s biorefinery platform for commercial production of high-value algae species and realise the commercial potential of their technology. Provectus Algae have established a minimum viable biorefinery platform by utilising algae which offers major production advantages over bacteria, fungal and mammalian cells for the synthesis of next generation biologics. The automated bioreactors with IIoT integration and AI capabilities are designed to be CGMP compliant and suitable for the production of pharmaceutical, food and agricultural products.

On completion of this project, Provectus Algae will have implemented a fully automated, commercial scale, algae biologics manufacturing facility. This project is expected to benefit the Australian biological manufacturing industry by improving yields through real-time optimisation, and reduced contamination through automation. It is anticipated that the project will lead to further collaborative research in the use of algae in pharmaceutical, food and agriculture industries.