GF Fermentech, a subsidiary of industrial enzyme specialist HLB Genex (187420.KQ), unveiled its "high-speed commercialization-focused CDMO platform" at SynBioBeta 2026, the world's largest synthetic biology conference held in San Jose, California, from Tuesday through Friday local time, the company said Wednesday.
SynBioBeta is the most prestigious global event in synthetic biology, bringing together innovative companies, research institutions, and international investors to share industry trends and pursue business partnerships.
GF Fermentech, a unit of KOSDAQ-listed HLB Genex, used the conference to promote its core production infrastructure and step up efforts to secure global clients. Chang Dong-eun, GF Fermentech's vice president and chief technology officer, delivered a presentation titled "Future Expansion: Accelerating Enzyme Innovation and Bio-Material Commercialization."
In the presentation, GF Fermentech emphasized that its strength lies in customized infrastructure that meets both the flexibility required for synthetic biology R&D and the stability needed for industrial-scale production, rather than simply scaling up production facilities. The company highlighted that it has systematically built pilot and commercial production lines ranging from 1 liter to 50,000 liters, equipping itself with a total of 160 kL of fermentation and purification infrastructure.
Data-driven real-time process control technology combining inline spectroscopic analysis with machine learning was introduced as a key competitive advantage. The company explained that this technology allows it to pre-emptively control variables that may arise during the fermentation process and secure consistency between batches, guaranteeing perfect reproducibility of the high-quality materials clients demand, even at commercial production scale.
"We received strong responses from attendees by presenting solutions that overcome the so-called 'scale-up gap' that synthetic biology companies experience when mass-producing laboratory-stage achievements on industrial sites, and that enable the most efficient path to commercialization," a GF Fermentech official said.
The company's high-efficiency, ultra-high-purity downstream processing (DSP) capabilities, the stage that follows fermentation, also drew significant attention at the event. GF Fermentech can handle both aqueous and organic solvent-based processes, and is equipped with a wide range of facilities from supercritical extraction to microfiltration, ultrafiltration, freeze drying, and spray drying, enabling production of complex functional materials into customized final formulations.
Based on this technological capability, GF Fermentech also shared a case in which, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it scaled up the production process for proteinase K, a core raw material, from laboratory scale to a 50,000-liter commercial scale in just one month, and began supplying clients within 90 days, demonstrating its speed of commercialization.
Through this conference, GF Fermentech plans to imprint its core competitiveness — the "high-speed commercialization-focused CDMO platform" — on the global market and to begin establishing long-term partnerships with promising collaborators. In particular, the company aims to cement its position as a global leader in the next-generation bio-material market by placing its "scale-up acceleration" capability — which dramatically shortens process time from research to mass production — at the forefront.
"The success of synthetic biology technology depends on 'time to market' — how quickly laboratory-level innovations can be brought to market as products," said Han Jung-jun, chief executive officer of GF Fermentech. "This event once again demonstrated that our highly reliable infrastructure, backed by LMO and GMP certifications, together with our precision control technology, will serve as a strong bridge helping global synthetic biology partners achieve rapid and successful market entry."
