Octarine

Octarine (Octarine Bio IVS) is a synthetic biology company that aims to develop psilocybin and cannabinoid derivatives.

Octarine

Octarine has raised a total of U$3 million in funding over four rounds. Their latest funding was raised on March 11th, 2021 from a Seed round.

“Using our unique biosynthetic platform we engineer microorganisms to produce a range of natural and novel cannabinoid and psilocybin derived molecules with improved pharmacokinetic and therapeutic properties.”

History

At the start of 2020, the company announced that they received (seed) funding from Oskare Capital and Bruce Linton (former CEO of Canopy Growth Cooperation). Previously they were part of the BioInnovation Institute’s Business Acceleration Academy program (BAA-program).

Key Staff

• Nethaji Gallage, CEO & Co-founder
• Nick Milne, CSO & Co-founder
• Maria Jesus
• Victor Forman

Collaborations

Nick Milne previously worked as a postdoc at DTU Biosustain (The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability) and Octarine was spun out from here.

News

• European synthetic biology company Octarine raises $1.8M USD in funding and enters pre-clinical studies with novel-improved- cannabinoid and psychedelic derivatives (press release, November 2020)
• Psychedelic compound from magic mushrooms produced in yeast (Phys.org, April 2020)
• European synthetic biology company Octarine receives funding to develop biosynthetic platform for cannabinoid and psilocybin derivatives (Press Release, January 2020)
• Biotech start-up targets billion-dollar market by producing superior cannabinoids in yeast (DTU.dk, June 2019)