Benchling: Delivering Life-Transforming Research in 2019

At Benchling in 2018, we shipped major updates to the Benchling platform, shared our vision for the next evolution of biotech, and hosted our first User Forum, where we brought together some of the world’s most forward-thinking life science leaders to discuss accelerating R&D in an era of digital transformation.

But above all, 2018 was about empowering scientists to focus on high-impact research more than ever before. From supporting ground-breaking cell therapy research, to working with scientists to create synthetic spider silk, we've had the chance to power some truly innovative science.

Since our founding, science has remained our central guiding principle. Benchling provides us a flexible informatics platform that enables our scientists to focus on high-impact research and deliver life-transforming medicines.

Nicholas Papadopoulos, Ph.D., SVP of R&D Operations at Regeneron

2018 was also full of exciting developments for Benchling as a company. More than twice as many scientists use Benchling today than at the end of 2017, and we are now honored to work with more than 120 life science organizations, ranging from emerging biotechs to global pharma. 1 in 3 of the world’s top 25 pharmaceutical organizations now rely on Benchling. To help take our support for high-impact research to the next level, this year we doubled the size of the Benchling team and welcomed five new executives on the heels of our Series B funding.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the paradigm-shifting work of life scientists around the world. With more biologically-derived products about to hit the market than ever before – from gene therapies, to synthetic meats, to biomaterials – large molecule R&D will have a more profound impact on people's lives in 2019 than ever before. At Benchling, we’re thrilled to be able to support this revolutionary work more and more, and we're expanding the Benchling platform to do just that.

We're expanding Benchling to support more NGS, fermentation, and high-throughput screening use cases, so scientists' data will be more centralized and standardized than ever before. Through new, heavy investment in our developer platform, 2019 is the year that our vision for fully automated biotech R&D will become a reality. And with our upcoming integrated analytics and visualization product, scientists and managers will be able to extract even more learnings from their data within Benchling.

In 2019, we'll also be doubling down on our efforts to bring together the world's most forward-thinking life science leaders. We'll be hosting two expanded User Forums this year – one on the west coast, and one on the east coast. Stay tuned for more information on these in the coming months.

I’d now like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the groundbreaking research we supported in 2018 and share some of the most exciting things that have happened at Benchling in the past year.

Highlighting some of our clients' groundbreaking work

Synlogic is developing microbe-based therapeutics to treat an array of diseases ranging from cancer to genetic inborn errors of metabolism. Scott Hamilton, Senior Lead Process Engineer at Synlogic, discusses how Synlogic combines automation with a fully unified informatics platform to free up scientists to spend less time processing data, and more time analyzing it. Watch the video.

As one of the world's leading biopharmaceutical firms, Regeneron has a long history of producing groundbreaking therapeutics. Regeneron's science has always pushed the envelope of particularly antibody discovery and development. With their VelociSuite technology, Regeneron continues to make constant strides towards shortening time to market for their large molecules.

Bolt Threads is developing technology to replicate the production of spider silk sustainably at a large scale. Alongside its sustainability, Bolt Threads's Microsilk is distinguished by its high tensile strength, elasticity, durability, and softness. And with their new Mylo product line, Bolt Threads is turning its attention towards synthetic, mushroom-based leather.

The diversity of Sorrento's pipeline is virtually unrivaled in the industry. It includes intracellular targeting antibodies (iTAbs), immune checkpoint inhibitors, bispecific antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-based cellular therapies, and an oncolytic virus. Put together, Sorrento's assets have the potential to break through some of the most difficult cancer challenges.

Big Benchling moments from 2018

• Benchling Raises $14.5M From Benchmark to Advance Life Sciences Research. Read the announcement.

• Five Takeaways from Benchling’s First User Forum. Read the blog.

• Bringing Industrialization to the Biotech Revolution. Read the blog.

• Obsidian Therapeutics: Unlocking Pivotal R&D Answers. Read the customer story.

• Agenus: Building a Global Informatics Platform. Read the customer story.