BioForward is reaching out to members to highlight their organizations through a new member profile feature to tell more of their stories. Varigen agreed to be interviewed as a part of our efforts to heighten the awareness of our region and integrated health solutions approach.

About Varigen: Varigen™ Biosciences, Natural Products by Design™ is an NIH- and NSF-funded effort to harness naturally occurring microbial diversity to develop the next generation of natural product drugs through genomics and metagenomics. Varigen Biosciences is a synthetic biology company focused on manufacturing and creating high-value therapeutic drugs for humans and animals and biocontrol agents for plantsOur vision and goal are to transform the production and discovery of microbial small molecule drugs with genome-enabled products and technologies that are significantly faster, more effective, more affordable, and more universally applicable across major markets than those currently available.

What are the key areas of or achievements by your organization that are impacting the state of Wisconsin and the overall biohealth industry?

Varigen’s suite of proprietary technologies have been used to produce dozens of new and old therapeutic compounds for clients in our CRO[KS1]  offerings. We are now pivoting to manufacturing and discovering our own high-value compounds. The fastest go-to-market strategy is to disrupt drug manufacturing of existing compounds that are challenging and expensive to produce.

What about the future of research, medical, and technological innovation excites you the most?

The ability to rationally improve lifesaving drugs for patients.

What do you find valuable about being a member of BioForward Wisconsin?

BioForward Wisconsin has enabled us to productively attend the yearly Bio International Convention where we meet customers and consultants from around the world.

Why Wisconsin? What does Wisconsin (and/or Madison/Milwaukee) offer for your company and/or your/its families?

With many employees having lived all over the USA, it is hard to beat Madison, Wisconsin for starting a company and raising a family.

What would you recommend about or say to others about Wisconsin’s biohealth industry and research institutions?

The biotech ecosystem in Wisconsin is robust and growing rapidly thanks to world-class academic institutions and tool-building expertise in the private sector.

What is one thing others may not know about your organization?

Varigen is reinventing how we manufacture and discover billion-dollar therapeutic compounds.