BOSTON, Sept. 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ginkgo Bioworks
("Ginkgo"), which is building the leading horizontal platform for
cell programming, today announced its readiness to continue scaling
support for COVID testing in congregate settings in response to new
emergency standards and recommendations issued by the Biden-Harris
Administration. Ginkgo, which recently announced a business
combination with Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: SRNG),
serves customers across industries seeking to develop new and
better products using biology. Last year, Ginkgo launched
Concentric by Ginkgo, its public health and biosecurity initiative,
to provide a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then,
Concentric has built a turnkey solution for states, cities, and
school districts to provide testing to every student in America
using a foundation of pooled testing.
"Massive scale testing gives each of us and our community
leaders the tools and data we need to make decisions that can stop
the spread of COVID-19 while allowing us to live our lives," said
Matt McKnight, Chief Commercial
Officer at Ginkgo Bioworks, and Head of Concentric. "Gingko stands
ready to partner with families, communities, States, the U.S.
Federal Government, and other nations of the world to bring its
biosecurity and pandemic preparedness tools into the fight against
COVID and future pandemic potential threats."
Yesterday, President Biden announced additional measures in an
updated COVID-19 plan. In addition to reaffirming the guidance of
the CDC to provide regular testing as funded in the American Rescue
Plan, President Biden has proposed new emergency standards to be
imposed by the Department of Labor and its Occupational Safety and
Health Administration to direct all businesses with more than 100
workers to require vaccinations or negative COVID-19 test results
submitted weekly. The New York Times'
Lauren Hirsch has reported that
"some 80 million workers will be affected."
Today, Concentric by Ginkgo's lab network consists of dozens of
partner labs which provide pooled testing in 19 states. In June,
Concentric announced that it had processed swabs from over 600,000
noses including in 950 schools across 19 states. Today, Concentric
has tested over twice that amount, serving major testing programs
in Arizona, California, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, New
Hampshire, North Carolina,
and Pennsylvania, and is poised to
announce additional major programs which will begin ramping up in
the coming weeks. So far, Concentric is contracted to provide
access to testing across school communities which serve over ten
million students. Concentric's lab network has enough contracted
and validated labs to serve approximately 44 million individuals
with pooled tests every week and Concentric stands ready to invest
to expand this partner capacity.
"Today's announcement from President Biden is a vital and
laudable step to bringing this stage of the pandemic to an end,"
said Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder
of Ginkgo Bioworks. "Vaccination and testing policies and
associated support for schools is helping us achieve what families
and communities around the country all want – to keep kids in the
classroom and COVID out. Using pooled testing as a foundation can
unlock that same approach to many other congregate settings,
including the workplaces which President Biden spoke about last
night."
As US Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel
Cardona recently noted during a press conference announcing
Concentric by Ginkgo's statewide partnership in Pennsylvania: "What I'm seeing in Pennsylvania is an example of what we could do
when we put our minds together, when we remove the politics from it
and say, how can we help our children? How can we help our
schools?"
Concentric by Ginkgo's COVID-19 response also includes a program
that will support biosurveillance tracking in three major
international airports (JFK, EWR, and SFO) in collaboration with
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and XpresCheck, as
well as a program in collaboration with Biobot and the Department
for Health and Human Services on wastewater surveillance. Ginkgo's
overall COVID response and biosecurity efforts also include a
program which supported Moderna with process optimization for key
raw materials used in the manufacturing of its mRNA vaccines,
including mRNA-1273, Moderna's vaccine candidate against COVID-19,
the first to enter clinical trials, as well as a collaboration with
Aldevron which yielded a manufacturing breakthrough for vaccinia
capping enzyme used for manufacturing of mRNA vaccines.
About Ginkgo Bioworks
Ginkgo is building a platform to enable customers to program
cells as easily as we can program computers. The company's platform
is enabling biotechnology applications across diverse markets, from
food and agriculture to industrial chemicals to pharmaceuticals.
Ginkgo has also actively supported a number of COVID-19 response
efforts, including K-12 pooled testing, vaccine manufacturing
optimization and therapeutics discovery. In May 2021, Ginkgo announced a business combination
with Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: SRNG), which, if
completed, will result in Ginkgo, through a parent entity, Ginkgo
Bioworks Holdings, Inc., becoming a public company. The
extraordinary general meeting of Soaring Eagle's shareholders in
connection with the transaction has been scheduled for September 14, 2021 and the transaction is
expected to close shortly thereafter, subject to customary closing
conditions. For more information, visit www.ginkgobioworks.com.
MEDIA CONTACT:
press@ginkgobioworks.com
INVESTOR CONTACT:
investors@ginkgobioworks.com
ADDITIONAL LEGAL INFORMATION
Forward-Looking Statements Legend
This document contains certain forward-looking statements within
the meaning of the federal securities laws with respect to the
proposed transaction between Ginkgo and Soaring Eagle, including
statements regarding the anticipated timing of the transaction, the
services offered by Ginkgo and the markets in which it operates,
and Ginkgo's projected future results. These forward-looking
statements generally are identified by the words "believe,"
"project," "potential," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate,"
"intend," "strategy," "future," "opportunity," "plan," "may,"
"should," "will," "would," "will be," "will continue," "will likely
result," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are
predictions, projections and other statements about future events
that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a
result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could
cause actual future events to differ materially from the
forward-looking statements in this document, including but not
limited to: (i) the risk that the transaction may not be completed
in a timely manner or at all, which may adversely affect the price
of Soaring Eagle's securities, (ii) the risk that the transaction
may not be completed by Soaring Eagle's business combination
deadline and the potential failure to obtain an extension of the
business combination deadline if sought by Soaring Eagle, (iii) the
failure to satisfy the conditions to the consummation of the
transaction, including the adoption of the agreement and plan of
merger by the shareholders of Soaring Eagle and Ginkgo, the
satisfaction of the minimum trust account amount following
redemptions by Soaring Eagle's public shareholders and the receipt
of certain governmental and regulatory approvals, (iv) the lack of
a third party valuation in determining whether or not to pursue the
proposed transaction, (v) the occurrence of any event, change or
other circumstance that could give rise to the termination of the
agreement and plan of merger, (vi) the effect of the announcement
or pendency of the transaction on Ginkgo business relationships,
performance, and business generally, (vii) risks that the proposed
transaction disrupts current plans of Ginkgo and potential
difficulties in Ginkgo employee retention as a result of the
proposed transaction, (viii) the outcome of any legal proceedings
that may be instituted against Ginkgo or against Soaring Eagle
related to the agreement and plan of merger or the proposed
transaction, (ix) the ability to maintain the listing of Soaring
Eagle's securities on Nasdaq, (x) volatility in the price of
Soaring Eagle's securities due to a variety of factors, including
changes in the competitive and highly regulated industries in which
Ginkgo plans to operate, variations in performance across
competitors, changes in laws and regulations affecting Ginkgo's
business and changes in the combined capital structure, (xi) the
ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other
expectations after the completion of the proposed transaction, and
identify and realize additional opportunities, and (xii) the risk
of downturns in demand for products using synthetic biology. The
foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. You should carefully
consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and
uncertainties described in the "Risk Factors'' section of Soaring
Eagle's proxy statement/prospectus relating to the transaction (the
"Proxy Statement"), and in Soaring Eagle's other filings with the
SEC. Soaring Eagle and Ginkgo caution that the foregoing list of
factors is not exclusive. Soaring Eagle and Ginkgo caution readers
not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements,
which speak only as of the date made. Neither Soaring Eagle nor
Ginkgo undertake or accept any obligation or undertaking to release
publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements
to reflect any change in its expectations or any change in events,
conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is
based.
Additional Information and Where to Find It
This document relates to a proposed transaction between Ginkgo
and Soaring Eagle. This document does not constitute an offer to
sell or exchange, or the solicitation of an offer to buy or
exchange, any securities, nor shall there be any sale of securities
in any jurisdiction in which such offer, sale or exchange would be
unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the
securities laws of any such jurisdiction. In connection with the
proposed transaction, Soaring Eagle filed a Proxy Statement on
August 13, 2021. The Proxy Statement
has been sent to all Soaring Eagle shareholders as of the record
date of August 10, 2021. Soaring
Eagle also will file other documents regarding the proposed
transaction with the SEC. Before making any voting decision,
investors and security holders of Soaring Eagle and Ginkgo are
urged to read the registration statement, the proxy
statement/prospectus and all other relevant documents filed or that
will be filed with the SEC in connection with the proposed
transaction as they become available because they will contain
important information about the proposed transaction.
Investors and security holders may obtain free copies of the
proxy statement/prospectus and all other relevant documents filed
or that will be filed with the SEC by Soaring Eagle through the
website maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov. In addition, the
documents filed by Soaring Eagle may be obtained free of charge by
written request to Soaring Eagle at 955 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10075, Attention: Eli Baker, Chief Financial Officer, (310)
209-7280.
Participants in Solicitation
Soaring Eagle and Ginkgo and their respective directors and
officers may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of
proxies from Soaring Eagle's shareholders in connection with the
proposed transaction. Information about Soaring Eagle's directors
and executive officers and their ownership of Soaring Eagle's
securities is set forth in Soaring Eagle's filings with the SEC. To
the extent that holdings of Soaring Eagle's securities have changed
since the amounts printed in Soaring Eagle's proxy statement, such
changes have been or will be reflected on Statements of Change in
Ownership on Form 4 filed with the SEC. Additional information
regarding the interests of those persons and other persons who may
be deemed participants in the proposed transaction may be obtained
by reading the proxy statement/prospectus regarding the proposed
transaction when it becomes available. You may obtain free copies
of these documents as described in the preceding paragraph.
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SOURCE Ginkgo Bioworks