Chemical compounds with high therapeutic value often come with an impossible catch: they exist in tiny amounts in rare plants, fungi, or other natural sources. Extracting them can take tons of raw material, leaving environmental scars, or require toxic petrochemical processes that produce hazardous waste. For decades, scientists tried to overcome these limits by using synthetic biology: engineering living cells to produce molecules, but scaling these methods from lab to factory remained a near-impossible challenge. Yields were low, cells resisted foreign tasks, and production often failed to reach commercial levels.
A new class of technology is emerging to tackle this challenge. It combines the elegance of nature's chemistry with the analytical power of artificial intelligence. Instead of relying on living cells, these systems use enzymes as the workhorses, enhancing them so they can operate independently in a controlled bioreactor. The result is a production platform that promises efficiency and scalability previously thought unattainable.
Michael Heltzen, CEO of eXoZymes, describes the breakthrough simply: "Cells weren't built to manufacture what we need, and they fight us every step of the way as they only want to make chemicals they themselves benefit from and only at the amount they need it. Using AI-engineered eXoZymes, we flip the model, as there are no living cells in our biosolutions." The company he leads is bringing this concept to life, offering a new way of making high-value natural compounds that sidesteps the limitations of both traditional extraction, petro-chemistry and synthetic biology all together.
The Mechanics of a New Manufacturing Engine
At the heart of eXoZymes' platform is a convergence of enzyme engineering, AI, and high-throughput lab methods. Natural enzymes are modified using AI to perform reliably outside of cells, in cell-free bioreactors. These "exozymes ('exo' meaning outside)" carry out complex chemical transformations with near-theoretical efficiency, overcoming the metabolic bottlenecks and toxicity issues that have hampered traditional synthetic biology.
The process begins with AI-guided engineering of enzymes, followed by expression, purification, and finally integration into bioreactors where feedstock such as sugar is transformed into the desired chemical product. By controlling temperature, pH, and cofactor recycling, eXoZymes achieves yields and purity that are unheard of in conventional methods. "By using the ingenuity of biology, coupled with AI, and combining it with the scalability of chemical engineering, we have solved the scaling bottleneck of synthetic biology," Heltzen explains.
This platform represents a fundamental shift: instead of trying to force nature's chemistry to work inside living cells, eXoZymes liberates enzymes from their biological constraints, allowing them to operate at maximum efficiency in industrial settings.
Scaling What Was Once Too Rare
Many molecules with pharmaceutical potential exist only in trace amounts in nature. Extracting them can be environmentally damaging or economically unviable. eXoZymes provides a platform that allows partners to access these compounds at scale without relying on destructive or toxic processes. The company licenses its technology to partners with market expertise, enabling them to produce high-value compounds efficiently and sustainably.
Heltzen emphasizes the potential: "Most investors already know that compared to the number of dollars invested, synthetic biology unfortunately has very little to show for it because it never scaled commercially. That's why we have introduced the next generation of biomanufacturing using AI to convert enzymes to function cell-free in a bioreactor."
The first partner company is on the path to market, but the implications are clear: eXoZymes has created a scalable production engine for molecules that were previously too rare or expensive to make. Feedstock is converted to high-value products with efficiency exceeding 90 percent, a level unheard of in conventional chemistry or biology.
Partnering to Transform Biomanufacturing at Scale
The potential applications for this platform span pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and specialty chemicals. eXoZymes' technology challenges the limitations that have kept promising compounds out of reach and offers an alternative to petrochemistry that reduces environmental impact. By licensing its platform rather than producing end products, the company can focus on its unique capability to solve one of the most difficult problems in chemical manufacturing: making new rare molecules at scale.
For an international audience, the promise is compelling: compounds once locked away in nature, or trapped behind toxic chemical processes, may soon be produced efficiently, sustainably, and at scale. "We're building real solutions at scale and we're inviting partners to join us," Heltzen says.
eXoZymes is testing the commercial viability of its technology through early partnerships. The challenge ahead is proving that eXoZymes can deliver molecules at industrial scale and quality. Success could mark a new era in biomanufacturing: one in which AI-enhanced enzymes enable unlimited access to all of Mother Nature's valuable natural products.
