Cambridge, UK — 1 July 2026

 

The Cambridge biotech rethinking how animal-health medicines are made, has been selected for a Japan–UK research programme worth over £1 million, alongside Japanese biotechnology company bitBiome. The award is made through the Eureka GlobalStars scheme and backed on the Japanese side by Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

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The Japan–UK call drew 37 applications and funded four. HERlab and bitBiome's joint proposal scored the highest, at 92.3%.

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The project takes on a group of high-value molecules — ingredients used in medicines, flavours and fragrances — that are notoriously difficult and environmentally dirty to produce by conventional chemistry. One flagship target is nootkatone, the compound behind the scent of grapefruit, which today is made through complex chemical processes. The partners aim to produce it biologically instead: grown by yeast, more cleanly and more affordably.

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To do this, the two companies are building a combined "dual biodiversity mining" approach. bitBiome brings one of the world's largest microbial genome databases and its enzyme-engineering expertise; HERlab brings its platform for finding and developing non-conventional yeasts, using AI to match each molecule to the natural host best suited to make it. HERlab searches across 1,200+ yeast species to do this.

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For HERlab, the programme stretches a platform it is building first for animal-health biologics — including monoclonal antibodies — to a different and demanding class of molecules. With animal pharma as its focus, the company sees a route, over time, towards cleaner and more affordable production of the complex active ingredients that animal medicines rely on.