The next leap in biomanufacturing won’t come from better organisms alone; it will come from better inputs. In this session, Erg Bio explores how rethinking feedstocks is unlocking new pathways to scalable, cost-effective, and sustainable production. Feedstocks that could transcend supply chain issues, those that could enable production at any location and on demand! From alternative carbon sources to waste-derived inputs, advances in feedstock innovation will reshape the emerging trillion-dollar bioeconomy. By aligning biology with abundant, low-cost raw materials, the industry can move beyond traditional constraints and build more resilient supply chains, powering a new generation of biomanufacturing at a global scale.

Industrial biotech faces repeated “valleys of death” between laboratory success and commercial manufacturing, driven by a combination of technological uncertainty, scale-dependent constraints, and (mis)alignment between engineering reality and investment expectations. Promising technologies often fail not because the science is wrong, but because scale-up trajectories are built on insufficient data, optimistic assumptions, and decision-making based on the 1st product specifications from the lab that do not translate to industrial conditions. This panel returns to fundamentals, drawing on real-world experience from piloting, process engineering, and early industrialization to examine where and why scale-up breaks down. Experts will discuss how important the scale-up journey is to align technology performance with investor expectations, support sound business cases, and turn the industrial biotech toolbox into a more robust, scalable, and profitable manufacturing platform.