On Thursday, Biota Technology, the U.S.-based industrial genomics firm that sold its microbiome R&D team and data science platform Danish industrial biotech Novozymes last month, announced that it is launching a new business line committed to managing pathogen risk in water infrastructure. Biota’s new business line will be based around high throughput genomic monitoring of wastewater to detect and defend against risks from pathogens like covid-19.
“Biota’s new offering addresses a global, long-term need to detect and proactively mitigate risks associated with potential disease outbreaks,” said Biota’s Board Chairman Ajay Kshatriya. “Genomic wastewater monitoring enables early intervention and broad protection for employees, customers, and the general public in a variety of enterprise segments.”
According to a company announcement, Biota recently began a collaboration with Berkeley, California’s Pangolin Health to develop technical workflows and analytics methods for customers in the Southwestern U.S.
“Biota offered us the opportunity to leverage their extraordinary work in difficult industrial environments into the similarly challenging wastewater setting. Because pathogen detection in wastewater is comprehensive, inclusive and always on, it’s an instrumental source of critical data for pandemic management and control. This is relevant both for the current coronavirus and its variant strains, and the next pathogen,” said Pangolin Health Executive Chairman Bryan Walser, M.D.
Biota also continues to expand its core energy business. Recent efforts include geographic expansion via strategic engagements with a national oil company in the Middle East, and further developing solutions for customers in conventional and unconventional plays. Additionally, Biota is expanding the energy market opportunity with low carbon product concepts in carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and geothermal energy.
Biota is a pioneer in the field of genomics for industrial markets. Since its establishment in 2014, the firm has commercialized its data collection and analysis of earth microbes, creating ubiquitous sensors, tracking devices and other data-driven products to improve the economics and greenhouse gas impact of industrial processes in energy markets.
Its customers have included energy majors Occidental and Anadarko Petroleum, where Biota produced insights into the movement of subsurface fluids, allowing those companies to reduce wastewater and land use impact from hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), while also improving capital efficiency of new well placement. The company has also worked with mining companies to reduce the operational cost of ore extraction using bio-based techniques for leaching and tailings (i.e., waste).
Biota also curates a proprietary “library” of 55,000 environmental samples from extreme earth environments. This so-called BiotaBank has enabled the company to develop–together with more than 20 industry partners–data products for a variety of industrial markets, based on genetic samples including geological history, salinity, pH or temperature to enable the development of precision industrial products.
