Saku Biosciences, Inc: Building the next generation of biomanufacturing infrastructure to make food, industrial materials, and health products scalable and sustainable.

Market:

Global demand for sustainable food and ingredients is projected to exceed $700B by 2030, yet current biomanufacturing strains are inefficient, costly, and fragile. Producers face bottlenecks in yield, reliability, and scalability. Saku’s platform enables higher-performing strains, unlocking faster commercialization and reducing costs across food, agbio, and pharma markets.

Technology:

Saku’s PicoShell technology screens millions of microbial strains in parallel, selecting the highest performers for yield, resilience, and quality. Unlike traditional methods that are slow and low-throughput, PicoShells allow continuous growth and real-time functional screening, accelerating strain engineering from years to months. This unlocks more sustainable production of proteins, lipids, and other high-value ingredients.

 

 

Advantages:

  • Ultra-high throughput screening
  • Real growth environment fidelity
  • Faster commercialization timelines
  • Lower cost of production
  • Broad cross-industry applications

Development Stage:

  • Prototype (advanced laboratory validation in progress)

Patents Issued:

  • WO2022031857A2 – Biodegradable Hollow Particle Technology
    Filed by Mark van Zee, this international (PCT) patent application covers biodegradable hollow particles—key components of our PicoShell™ platform—designed for high-throughput microbial screening with improved environmental compatibility.
  • Role in Our Platform
    These hollow, biodegradable particles are the core innovation behind real-time, scalable strain selection—combining environmental safety and functional reliability. We have an exclusive license to leverage this technology for our biomanufacturing initiatives.

Select Press Releases/Publications/Presentations:

  • Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the study demonstrates PicoShells as picoliter-scale porous hydrogel containers with a hollow inner cavity and permeable outer shell. This design lets cells grow in production-like environments—such as bioreactors or shaking flasks—while remaining compatible with standard flow cytometry for high-throughput sorting.

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