Regarding technical feasibility, a refactored cultivation module was designed, constructed and validated. The purpose of refactoring the cultivation module is twofold: 1/ accelerate the evolution by implementing advanced selection protocolsand allowing for pluggable features such as automated mutagenesis or fluidic coupling to third party devices to enrich our value proposition; 2/ enable industrial scale-up by easing the integration in a production platform, and by lowering mean downtime and operational costs.
The refactored cultivation module has been prototyped and validated. It is now ready to support the implementation of advanced proprietary selection protocols involving the coupling of multiple cultivation modules. Downtime and maintenance costs will be reduced thanks to the improved monitoring of modules and ease of part replacements. The cost of ownership has been kept in line with the current design despite of the added features and sensors, and assembly time is reduced by 50%.
Altar has established contact with two companies specialized in industrialization and manufacturing of special-purpose machines and obtained from them general recommendations, guidance, timing and budgets.
As for commercial feasibility, an opportunity study was conducted by Altar with the support of company specialized in innovation and development of new businesses. According to the persons interviewed during the study, Altar technology is of general interest for all market segments covered (energy, health, cosmetics, feed, food, agronomy), whereas the food industry demonstrated to be the most receptive because Altar technology could be used to develop no-GMO strains. The size of the market was estimated to approximately 7M€ for the food industry only.
The study has led to a series a different recommendations regarding business model, pricing, addition of external services, some of which having been already taken into account by Altar during the period covered by the report.
Whereas the sequencing of evolved strains is usually performed by Altar's customers, it could be useful to add this service to Altar's portfolio. In addition to business opportunity, this would create valuable information to continuously improve Altar's technology. During the period, Altar had in-depth discussions with sequencing equipment manufacturers, bioinformatic developers, sequencing subcontractors and public research institutes having proprietary bioinformatic pipelines in order to analyse the different alternatives in terms of technology and distribution between outsourcing and internalization.
The business plan was revised on the basis of learnings obtained during the project.Sales’ revenues are expected to originate from the different offers described above and to generate approx. 17.7 M€ revenues by 2024, generating an EBITDA close to 40% by this year in a scenario where approximately 75% of BREEDER’s capacity is sold.
