Plasmid DNA is the unsung hero of drugmaking — and it needs help.
Novel Bio CEO Pankaj Khanna on a pDNA platform for the next generation of medicines.
Near-zero failure rates: Novel Bio's NBX achieves near-zero failure rates on customers' most complex plasmid designs.
A new level of drug manufacturing: NBX achieves a 10x customer productivity improvement, reducing labor and costs by 80%.
Growing with genetic medicine: Competent cells, cell-free pDNA, and GMP-grade plasmids aim to realize the needs of a new wave of medicines.
In the world of genetic medicines, success often hinges on an overlooked component: plasmid DNA. For Pankaj Khanna, CEO and Co-Founder of Novel Bio, this isn’t just a technical challenge; it’s a mission.
“Plasmid DNA is the cornerstone of modern genetic medicine,” Pankaj explains. Borne out of his own frustrations within the industry, he co-founded Novel Bio to overcome this critical bottleneck and usher in a new era of efficient drug manufacturing, enabling better medicines for all.
Lessons from the pandemic for genetic medicine
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed critical flaws in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Vaccine rollouts were delayed, not by science, but by the slow and unreliable manufacturing of plasmid DNA. The surge in demand for COVID-19 vaccines led to a redirection of resources, creating shortages that rippled across non-COVID areas like cell & gene therapy (CGT) and cancer immunology. Developers in these fields faced delays and production halts as they struggled to secure the plasmids needed to advance their work.
“Lead times of up to 16 months for plasmid DNA were a major bottleneck,” says Pankaj. “It was frustrating to see lives at stake because we simply couldn’t produce the starting material fast enough.”
Plasmid DNA is the small, circular piece of DNA commonly used in genetic engineering to deliver genes into cells. In pharmaceutical manufacturing, it is essential for producing the building blocks for advanced therapies like RNA-based medicines, gene therapies, and vaccines. Without high-quality plasmid DNA, these treatments cannot be produced efficiently or reliably — if they can be created at all.
Until now, the entire biotech industry has relied on E. coli to make pDNA, a 50-year-old technology whose inherent limitations are becoming difficult to ignore.
“Today, you send your designs to a CDMO and hope for the best when your DNA returns six weeks later," says Pankaj. "They can get E. coli to work on 80-90% of designs, but the failure rates are increasing day by day. Everyone is unhappy about it, but they’re stuck because no one has innovated a better way to DNA until now.”
Novel Bio’s NBX platform offers a new way to manufacture plasmid DNA for biotech and pharma. NBX uses a proprietary bacterial strain that is faster, more productive, and doesn't choke on complex designs. With new AI-powered tools and companies emerging every day, Novel Bio's drop-in platform is poised to help make a new wave of genetic medicines.
Novel Bio CEO Pankaj Khanna aims to bring plasmid manufacturing into the age of genetic medicine.
pDNA solutions across the spectrum
pDNA propagation service
Novel Bio's flagship offering is its in-house plasmid propagation service, which has has won customers over with a remarkable success rate: zero failed designs out of thousands tested.
For many customers, the experience involves waiting many weeks for a plasmid DNA provider to return your DNA, only to discover that a significant portion of your designs couldn't be made. This adds costly delays and forces researchers to revise their designs, extending timelines unpredictably.
“Our clients give us their most complex plasmid designs, the ones E. coli struggles with,” Pankaj says, "and we deliver every time."
NBX competent cell cloning kit
For researchers seeking a solution closer to home, Novel Bio will soon launch its own cloning kit to help labs speed up the cloning process, enabling results in two days compared to the industry-standard three. Pankaj says the kit will put the power of NBX into the hands of scientists everywhere. When they see what it can do, he thinks they'll be won over.
The next wave: Cell-free pDNA
For customers seeking the benefits of a cell-free platform, such as reduced reliance on fermentation, Novel Bio will debut its cell-free platform later this year. By incorporating NBX's superiority in generating the small quantities of bacterially produced pDNA needed in cell-free systems, it will offer the best of both worlds.
"The efficiency of NBX is a game-changer," Pankaj says. For researchers who face unpredictable success rates in plasmid cloning, he says NBX will free scientists from troubleshooting and give them the raw materials to move toward the clinic.
Growing with the demands of genetic medicine
Novel Bio is currently completing the scale-up of its R&D-grade pDNA facilities. Thanks to the efficiency of the NBX platform, the company can operate in smaller, less expensive manufacturing facilities, allowing for greater nimbleness in scaling production to meet evolving demand.
“We’re bringing plasmid manufacturing into the modern age,” Pankaj explains. Unlike traditional large-scale facilities, Novel Bio’s smaller, highly efficient setup reduces costs while maintaining rigorous quality standards.
That combination of scalability and quality — combined with highly personalized service from real DNA experts — has helped the company triple its revenue in last year, and it's on track to do the same this year.
The next frontier for Novel Bio is building out its GMP-grade production facilities, which are slated to go online in late 2025. GMP-grade pDNA represents a substantial portion of the total market, projected to exceed $30 billion by 2034.
“Our GMP-grade plasmids will cost clients up to four times less while delivering higher purity and faster lead times,” Pankaj notes. He believes this approach is set to disrupt a market where costs often exceed $1 million per batch. By leveraging the advanced capabilities of the NBX platform, Novel Bio can achieve unmatched efficiency, ensuring that GMP-grade plasmids meet the stringent requirements of pharmaceutical production while remaining accessible to a broader range of clients.
Novel Bio is exploring strategic licensing agreements with pharma innovators to accelerate their drug manufacturing and expects to announce partners in 2025. In a recent case study, a Novel Bio customer found NBX to be 10 times more productive than the current approach, reducing labor and cost by 80%. The project proved successful in animal health, expanding NBX's potential impact beyond human therapies to broader markets.
The right place at the right time
Novel Bio's NBX platform sits at an inflection point in drug manufacturing. As a multitude of AI-powered drug discovery companies design more and more complex genetic medicines, the demand for high-quality plasmid DNA is surging. Testing and manufacturing them will require vast quantities of plasmid DNA.
“The success of any business is solving problems at the right time,” Pankaj says. “Novel Bio is positioned to lead this shift, making cutting-edge therapies more accessible and affordable.”
As Novel Bio gears up for its next chapter, Pankaj’s vision remains steadfast: “We’re not just making better plasmid DNA. We’re enabling better medicines—and a better future.”
