21st.BIO, a Danish bioproduction firm offering integrated end-to-end services, has launched a new pilot facility in its Danish headquarters in Søborg to facilitate and accelerate the transition between lab and large-scale fermentation of biotech innovations.
At its new plant, 21st.BIO aims to guide and support early-stage startups or large companies in scaling the production of recombinant proteins and peptides with applications in nutrition, F&B, agriculture, biomaterials, and biopharma.
“In this industry, upscaling mistakes cost a lot of money and time”
The new plant features “state-of-the-art” processing equipment with over 3000 L fermentation capacity, focusing on optimizing specific processes. It offers services from strain construction to industrial production to help customers scale more quickly in a risk-mitigated and cost-effective way.
Thomas Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of 21st.BIO, commented, “In this industry, upscaling mistakes cost a lot of money and time. For our customers, it’s all about getting the next step right. The ability to increase productivity when also moving up in scale is what distinguishes good from great.”

Expertise in larger-scale
21st.BIO was founded in 2020 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has an R&D team and laboratories in Davis, California.
The Danish biotech boasts proven fermentation capacity and advanced precision fermentation technology for large-scale production, partly licensed from Novonesis’s decade-long platform for food-grade ingredients. It has also received financing from Novo Holding to develop technologies for industrial bioproduction.
According to the Danish firm, it has the knowledge and experience to identify the essential factors and equipment needed for efficient large-scale production of precision fermentation-derived proteins. It can assist customers in choosing the best contract manufacturing organization for their project, reducing the risk of costly delays.
“Our goal with this pilot was to build a mini factory”
Moreover, the new facility is designed to enable strong collaboration between 21st.BIO and customer teams during scaling with the pilot plant strategically located alongside the company’s strain development laboratories.

The power of biology
21st.BIO inaugurated its facility last week in a grand opening with over a hundred guests from the bioindustrial, financial, and political sectors. Among the attendees was Margrethe Vestager, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission.
According to the announcement, Vestager underlined the biotech sector’s potential to address sustainability and global food chain challenges at the event. She stressed the importance of collaboration between policymakers and industry to create effective policies.
In March, the European Commission introduced a plan to enhance the biotech and biomanufacturing sector in the EU with a set of regulations, actions, and investments acknowledging that biology has the potential to play a major role in the global economy. According to a McKinsey report, over time, biology could produce about 60% of the input to the global economy.
21st.BIO aims to lower the production costs of bioproducts through advanced technology and support for scale-up. The company is also working towards building large-scale protein factories with industrial manufacturing benefits.
Thorvald Ullum, CTO at 21st.BIO, explained, “Our goal with this pilot was to build a mini factory, to best prepare customers for large-scale industrial production. We therefore wanted the process equipment to mimic what customers will find in their next step with large-scale biomanufacturing – only downsized to a pilot scale.”