Zylidac Bio and Prolific Machines Partner to Scale Light-Controlled Biomanufacturing
The collaboration will establish an end-to-end development and manufacturing pathway to scale light-controlled cell line technology from benchtop development through to 250-liter GMP production.
Fully integrated biologics CDMO, Zylidac Bio, and biotech company, Prolific Machines, have agreed on a partnership that will focus on scaling Prolific’s optogenetics platform from early development through to GMP production (1). The partnership, which was unveiled in an Oct. 21, 2026 press release, is set to create an end-to-end development and manufacturing pathway for Prolific’s clients, allowing them to move seamlessly from cell line development with Prolific onto Zylidac for scale-up, drug substance and product manufacturing, fill/finish, and packaging.
Under the terms of the partnership, Zylidac Bio will initially be required to complete a tech transfer of Prolific’s process at a smaller 50-liter scale to ensure reproducibility is possible at their site. Once that is completed successfully, the companies plan to scale client programs to 250 liters and into GMP manufacturing scale. Additionally, Prolific’s illumination hardware is compatible with Zylidac’s existing bioreactors, which means that customers will not be required to build new manufacturing infrastructure.
“After demonstrating success at development scale with industry-leading yields across mAbs and difficult-to-express proteins, the next step is scaling the technology to GMP production for clinical and commercial supply,” said Deniz Kent, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Prolific, in a company press release (1). “We are very pleased to partner with Zylidac, with a proven team and a great new facility in immediate proximity to our labs in Emeryville. Our science and production teams can work on the same program in the same week, and our clients get a manufacturing partner that already knows the technology.”
“Our teams visited each other’s labs early on, and it was clear the capabilities were highly complementary,” added Steve Lavezoli, Chief Commercial Officer of Zylidac, in the press release (1). “Prolific focuses on early-stage cell line development work, while we offer the process development, scale-up and GMP capacity required for later stages, including programs based on new expression technology like Prolific’s. We built our Emeryville site to take a molecule from cell line to finished product. We’re excited to be the team that takes this technology to production scale.”
Prolific’s optogenetics platform enables increased productivity and product quality by using light to control protein expression in engineered cell lines. Earlier this year, Prolific revealed that it had set a new industry benchmark for intensified fed-batch titers of a monoclonal antibody (mAb), reaching a Chinese hamster ovary cell line run of 21 g/L over a period of 15 days, which is significantly higher than the industry standard (2).
References
1. Prolific Machines. Zylidac Bio and Prolific Machines Partner to Scale Prolific’s Next-Generation Biologics Manufacturing Platform to GMP Production. Press Release, Oct. 21, 2026.
2. The Pharma Navigator. Prolific Machines Sets New mAb Productivity Benchmark at 21 g/L.ThePharmaNavigator.com, May 6, 2026.
