1. Executive Summary

AlphaBrick is a novel software tool for the easy design, exchange and creation of synthetic gene constructs.

Recent advances in the synthetic biology field, such as with the Crisper/Cas9 system, have dramatically increased the potential of synthetic biology technologies to transform our world. We can now use our biological understanding to create products that solve some of the biggest challenges the world faces. These advances, however, require a new set of accessible computational tools that enable the synthetic biologist to quickly and collaboratively design and test DNA circuitry.

Employing a lean methodology, we have identified the three key problems faced by the synthetic biology community. Currently, (1) the design of gene circuits is complex because collaboration between and within teams is difficult and thought processes are lost, (2) exchange of gene circuit parts is messy, as you have to individually track and hunt down the person who created it and (3) individuals have to have an advanced understanding of programming languages to use automated labs.

Our software platform solution, Alpha Brick, originated at the UK’s first 72-hour bio-hackathon at which it won first place. AlphaBrick allows synthetic biologists to easily design, exchange and create DNA circuitry. The platform enables users to experience a quicker, traceable design process that ensures that decisions are recorded and that subsequent progress is accelerated. It provides a marketplace for lab designs by facilitating the buying and selling of gene circuit parts, making collaboration easier. The integration of the AlphaBrick platform with Transcriptic’s automated laboratories saves precious time and reduces the knowledge-barrier to using robotic labs. Our platform’s patent notification and parts combination recommendation, furthermore, address an unmet need of biotech industry that we identified through industry interviews. We envisage that AlphaBrick will have a big impact on accelerating synthetic biology research and commercialisation.

The synthetic biology community of biohackers, academics, startups and established biotech companies who have these problems is growing quickly and the current tools available don’t address these concerns in an integrated way. There is space in this is $1.2 billion market for an easy to use tool that allows high share ability of gene circuitry. The platform will be commercialised such that users will be required to pay a monthly subscription fee at the average market rate for the platform’s premium features.

Our multidisciplinary team consists of developers, biologists and entrepreneurs and can be broadly stratified into product development and business development. The current team was formed at the Cambridge University Technology and Enterprise Club’s 2016 Bio hackathon. Our 4 co-founding members are working to establish AlphaBrick as an incorporated software company.

Working through the prestigious Accelerate Cambridge programme, we envisage that our alpha-version will be ready for distribution in January 2017 and that our final product will be ready for launch in June 2017. In order to ensure the progression of our venture, Alphabrick are looking to raise £20,000 in pre-seed from angel investors funding or non-dilutive funding by the start of February 2017.

2. Product Concept

The Problem

Recent advances in the $6.4 billion synthetic biology field have dramatically increased the potential of synthetic biology technologies to transform our world. We can now use our biological understanding to create products that solve some of the biggest challenges the world faces. We have adopted a strong lean methodology to identify that these advances have also lead to a currently poorly met need for a new set of accessible computational tools that enable the synthetic biologist to quickly and collaboratively design and test DNA circuitry.

Through extensive interviews with the synthetic biology community, we have sought to verify every one of our business hypothesis to generate evidence-based identification of the pains of each our customer segments and the value propositions that they care most about. By talking to 69 iGEM teams, 7 synthetic biology startups, the UK’s world leading synthetic biology labs and a major world pharmaceutical R&D lab, we have been able to identify the key pain points in the work flow of synthetic biology users. This has informed and shaped our continuously changing business model canvas, the staple tool of all startups in search of a viable and scalable business model.

The three key pains of most of our customer segments within the synthetic biology community are that (1) the design of gene parts is complex because collaboration between and within teams is difficult and thought processes are lost; (2) exchange of gene circuit parts is messy, as you have to individually track and hunt down the person who created it and (3) individuals have to have an advanced understanding of programming languages to use automated labs. Our customer interviews, moreover, elucidated nuances in the pains felt by our customer segments: while most of our customers would benefit from easier access to automated cloud labs to reduced labour costs and the time taken to run manual experiments, some of customers, and arguably our most important customers in terms of purchasing power, would not benefit from this due to worries over intellectual property and trade secrets. From talks with a major pharmaceutical and biotech company, we also identified a fourth pain point, (4) the need for notifications about patented sequences and readily available information about part combinations.

Our Solution

We have therefore founded Alphabrick, a software tool interfacing automated cloud labs, for the design, exchange, and creation of synthetic gene constructs. Our software platform solution, www.alphabrick.bio, originated at the UK’s first 72 hour biohackathon at which it won first place.

AlphaBrick allows synthetic biologists to easily design, exchange and create DNA circuitry. The platform enables users to experience a quicker, traceable design process that ensures that decisions are recorded and that subsequent progress is accelerated. It provides a marketplace for lab designs; by facilitating the buying and selling of gene circuit parts, making collaboration easier. The integration of the AlphaBrick platform with Transcriptic’s automated laboratories saves precious time and reduces the knowledge-barrier to using robotic labs. Given our customer interviews, we envisage that this platform will have a big impact on accelerating SynBio research and commercialisation.

We demoed a successful run of our first prototype and MVP with a use-case at the Cambridge Biohackathon using Transcriptic’s automated cloud lab work cell in July of this year.

We have since been working to expand the capabilities of our platform. Our product development team are hard at work on algorithms for effective recommendations for the best combination of constructs when designing a DNA circuit as well as data-mining solutions for notifications about patented DNA sequences.

3. Commercial Potential

Market Opportunity

As synthetic biology technology has been developing even quicker than that predicted by Moore’s Law, the $6.4 billion synthetic biology market is set to grow by one of the biggest compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) of any field. The synthetic biology market will make up 6% of the total biotech market. Considering the value system and chains within the synthetic biology field’s workflow, it is clear that there is trapped value with regards to the effieicney, accessibility and user empowement that can be addressed by new computational biology solutions such as AlphaBrick. The computational biology market is set to grow by 21% from it’s current $1.7 billion valuation. This therefore presents an immensely profitable potential market opportunity for Alphabrick.

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Competitor Analysis

An analysis of the competitive landscape into which Alphabrick will be released has proved favourable. Alphabrick’s platform, as a whole, does not have direct competitors as there is no commercially available platform that integrates the pains that Alphabrick addresses. When broken down, however, into the individual features that it offers the user, it can be understood to have a number of indirect competitors in the DNA sequence design and automated creation space. While DNA sequences can be designed for the specific purposed of using the Crisper/Cas9 system with Desktop Genetics and more broadly with Benchling, these software solutions do not have the extensive gene construct combination recommendation or patent notification that our platform has. Furthermore, these platforms do not interface with automated laboratories. These automated laboratories are partners of our software platform as our platform directs business to their way. Furthermore, currently widely used synthetic biology tools such as SnapGene and APE do not have the intuitive user interface that reduces barriers to entry for new synthetic biologists. The combined share ability and usability that our platform enables is unprecedented. There is therefore space for AlphaBrick in this competitive landscape.

Intellectual Property

Alphabrick’s intellectual property has thus far been protected by trade secrets and copyrights. We are working to obtain legally binding trademarks with the UK Intellectual Property Office for our platform through advice and mentorship from Accelerate Cambridge, the accelerator programme on which we have been accepted.

Our platform layout and written content is automatically covered by UK copyright protection law. Alphabrick has signed a series of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with all potential investors and mentors with which we have shared sensitive information about our platform and features. Alphabrick’s platform is also built using closed code and therefore trade secrets form a big part of our intellectual property protection strategy. Trade secrets give us a competitive advantage when it comes to protecting our algorithms because it means that we don’t have to publish and make public sensitive aspects of our platform. While common in the biotech field, patents in the software field are contentious and since the Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank software infringement case ruling, the software patent landscape has shifted considerably such that patenting in this field is rarely the best intellectual property protection strategy to pursue. This is very pertinent to AlphaBrick especially given the early stage of this startup and the large costs associated with engaging with patent attorneys. By using trade secrets, AlphaBrick is however at risk if our code is discovered independently, if our platform is reverse-engineered and/if companies who later patent a similar technology take patent infringement actions. We have sought to mitigate the likelihood of these risks occurring by safeguarding our code using firewalls and working with Accelerate Cambridge to develop a sound long-term intellectual property strategy.

Pathway to Commercialisation

Alphabrick are progressing through the prestigious Accelerate Cambridge programme at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School to identify the best pathway to commercialisation of the software platform. By 2017, the initial funding obtained for the platform and founder resources are set to run out. Due to this, the team will be raising pre-seed funding in November to continue and prepare for the launch of the alpha version of the platform by January 2017. The marketing strategy for the launch of the final product will build on the traction gained via users of the alpha and beta versions. Alphabrick has already achieved a formidable network within the biotech community and industry for its early stages, it will harness this to gain the breadth of selected users it needs to complete an initial alpha testing phase. The feedback from this phase will shape the beta version which will be released to a yet bigger number of users to ensure that the platform is ready for product launch in June 2017. The model for the revenue stream for Alphabrick will be from subscription fees paid by users to unlock premium features on the software platform.

4. Business Environment

Alphabrick’s resources, as a startup, are geared towards the realisation of a rolling series of short-term goals that are necessary for the survival of a cash-strapped venture. However, a consideration of the long-term, external and internal, issues that may arise and hinder or help Alphabrick’s progression to a fully-fledged synthetic biology software company is undertaken here to evaluate Alphabrick’s longer-term business environment. A STEEPLE framework which in its augmented form encompasses a PEST (political, economic, social and environmental) and SWOT (strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, threats) analysis, is used her evaluate external and internal points of possible concern for Alphabrick.

4. Team