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Fermentation technology specialist Cauldron has appointed David Weiner as its new chief technology officer.

Founded in 2022, the Australian biotech company has developed a ‘hyper-fermentation’ technology to unlock a scalable continuous bioprocess, aiming to significantly reduce manufacturing costs for mainstream, high-volume biomanufactured goods.

Cauldron aims to address the fermentation industry’s main challenges of scale and cost by generating more volume at less cost using smaller bioreactors. It provides its specialised platform as a service to synthetic biology product companies.

Weiner brings over 25 years of experience in biotechnology research and development, having led teams to scale solutions across industrial biotech, ag-biotech, food and nutrition, biofuels and pharma.

Before joining Cauldron, he served as VP and head of R&D at Solugen, where he played a role in developing the company’s chemienzymatic technology platform underpinning a ‘first-of-its-kind’ biomanufacturing plant, the Bioforge.

Commenting on his appointment, Weiner said: “Throughout my career, I’ve seen how applying cutting-edge science to industrial solutions can drive meaningful impact at scale. Cauldron’s ability to deliver mainstream bio-products at cost parity with traditional goods offers incredible potential for the bioeconomy. We can redefine the scope of biomanufacturing.”

Within the past year, Cauldron has onboarded six clients at its 25,000-litre demo facility and closed a Series A funding round of over $6.25 million.

The company said its growth stems from ‘pivotal technical advancements’ building on the foundation of continuous fermentation R&D and hyper-fermentation IP acquired through the 2022 acquisition of Agritechnology.

Agritechnology had proven the efficicacy of a proprietary hyper-fermentation platform at 10,000-litre scale and, post-acquisition, Cauldron has advanced the technology. It has validated hyper-fermentation’s compatibility with multiple organisms and proven the technology’s advantages with several precision fermentation client success cases. Plans are now in place to move into larger, industrial-scale production.

Michele Stansfield, co-founder and CEO at Cauldron, said: “David brings a distinguished career leading R&D programs that deliver on process optimisation to scale novel bioprocesses. As Cauldron expands on key technical breakthroughs with our hyper-fermentation platform technology, David brings valuable perspectives to our leadership team.”

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