NAMUH, Ginkgo Bioworks Ink Partnership To Develop Functional Oligosaccharides

(RTTNews) - Infant nutrition company NAMUH and Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings, Inc. (DNA) announced Wednesday a multi-product collaboration to develop functional oligosaccharides that are structurally identical to those found in human breast milk.

NAMUH's mission is to create complete infant formula products substantially comparable to human breast milk, down to the molecular level.

Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMOs) are essential fiber-like nutrients unique to human milk that provide an important energy source to beneficial gut bacteria in infants.

Despite being the third most abundant component in human milk, HMOs are currently a small component in infant formulas, if present at all.

Currently, NAMUH's proprietary technology provides for a cost-effective source of a family of HMOs via yeast fermentation.

Through this partnership, NAMUH will leverage Ginkgo's expertise in yeast strain engineering and fermentation process development to enable the production of various HMOs through yeast fermentation and work to unlock the possibility of making infant formula nutritionally robust and much closer to human breast milk.