New Wave Biotech and iMEAN Partner for End-to-end Bioprocess Intelligence

Mar 17
3 min read

A joint proposition connecting upstream metabolic modelling with downstream process optimisation, TEA, and LCA — so teams can make better decisions from cell to product.

New Wave Biotech is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with iMEAN, bringing together two complementary areas of expertise to help biomanufacturers make better process decisions across the full bioprocess.

By connecting iMEAN's upstream metabolic modelling and strain design capabilities with New Wave Biotech's downstream process optimisation, techno-economic analysis (TEA), and life cycle assessment (LCA), this partnership offers one of the first joint propositions that gives teams visibility from organism design through to purification, cost, and sustainability — from day one.

The goal: help biomanufacturers make confident process decisions earlier, with fewer costly surprises at scale.

The problem: bioprocesses designed in halves

Upstream and downstream development typically operate in silos. Strain engineers optimise organisms without visibility into purification constraints. Process developers design downstream workflows without understanding the upstream choices driving their feed streams.

When these decisions aren't connected, the consequences compound: costly rework, unexpected bottlenecks at scale, and R&D timelines that stretch years longer than they should. The gap between upstream and downstream — where organism design decisions cascade into purification complexity, cost, and sustainability outcomes — is where many bioprocesses fail.

This partnership closes that gap. Upstream and downstream teams can now work with shared visibility, using coordinated modelling and scenario simulations to design processes that are viable technically, commercially, and sustainably.

What the joint proposition delivers

Optimise upstream and downstream together, not one after the other
Identify and solve bottlenecks across the full process ahead of time
See cost and sustainability impact of process decisions earlier
Boost performance while minimising experimental burden

Who this is for

This joint proposition is available now and supports biomanufacturers across:

Food ingredients and precision fermentation
Industrial biotechnology and biobased chemicals
Cosmetics and personal care ingredients
Pharmaceuticals and therapeutic proteins

Whether the challenge is early screening, production optimisation, cost reduction, or designing for sustainability — this partnership offers a more connected approach.

Proven results on both sides

New Wave Biotech has delivered up to 8.6x improvement in product recovery, 55% reduction in unit costs, and 92% fewer experiments. Working with CPI, the platform achieved prediction accuracy 1.4x–4x better than industry averages from a single experimental run.

iMEAN has achieved a 2.8x titer increase and over €600,000 in R&D savings for clients in biobased chemicals production, with results delivered in six months. The company has also built genomic databases of 1,000+ food-grade strains for a major food innovation partner.

A partnership built on a shared belief

Bioprocess design should not rely on late-stage trial and error. It should begin with clarity — supported by predictive modelling, economic insight, and sustainability foresight.

"Bioprocessing has an expensive disconnect. Companies spend months optimising a strain, hand it to the downstream team, and then discover it's a nightmare to purify. By then, the most expensive decisions have already been made. We built New Wave Biotech to enable smarter downstream optimisation. Partnering with iMEAN means customers can now see their downstream options upfront, and optimise the full process together." — Zoe Yu Tung Law, CEO and Co-Founder, New Wave Biotech

"Metabolic modelling tells you how to design a better organism and optimise the bioprocess, but it doesn't tell you whether that bioprocess leads to an economic process at scale. Partnering with New Wave Biotech is a natural extension of our mission at iMEAN, to deliver high-quality services that accelerate and de-risk our customers' R&D. Together, we enable companies to visualise the full picture from day one." — Rémi Peyraud, CEO, iMEAN