Emeryville, CA, November 5, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Amyris Cartographer™ has won the 2026 BioTech Breakthrough Award for Precision Fermentation Solution of the Year.
- Cartographer™ scans thousands to millions of molecules to find renewable, biologically accessible chemistry that meets customers' specific needs.
- Molecules are evaluated for their manufacturability, based on Amyris' experience as a biomanufacturing pioneer that has scaled up 15+ fermentation-based molecules.
Amyris, Inc. announced today that it has been named a winner of the 2026 BioTech Breakthrough Awards for Precision Fermentation Solution of the Year, recognizing Cartographer™, a first-of-its-kind proprietary AI-powered platform that will transform accessibility to biomanufactured ingredients. Customers bring Amyris a specific challenge, and Amyris uses Cartographer™ to identify chemistry that fits the need and can be made through precision fermentation.
What are the BioTech Breakthrough Awards?
The BioTech Breakthrough Awards evaluate advancements in life sciences and biotechnology, recognizing companies and individuals transforming the industry with cutting-edge technology. Across thousands of organizations, including startups and Fortune 500 companies, nominees are rigorously evaluated, and winners are selected based on innovation and impact.
What is Cartographer™?
Amyris created Cartographer™ to more easily connect customer challenges and market needs to unique renewable solutions that can be accessed through precision fermentation. That challenge can be a performance requirement, a regulatory constraint, a chemical motif or functional group, or a physicochemical requirement.
How does Cartographer™ work?
Amyris uses Cartographer™ to scan thousands to millions of different molecules, identifying chemistry that fits the customer’s unique need and is accessible through biology. Cartographer™ includes a proprietary layer of scoring metrics for manufacturability to ensure that the selected chemistry has the most viable path to its desired end market.
How does Amyris take a molecule from the lab to scale?
Built on decades of experience demonstrating commercial-scale production for 15+ molecules through fermentation, Cartographer™ empowers Amyris’ scientists to search and curate a wide range of chemistry with new speed and precision. To transfer that chemistry from the lab to market, Amyris can generate samples for the customer to validate performance and eventually bring it to scale at Amyris’ state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Barra Bonita, Brazil.
"Biology is still a large, untapped repository of chemical diversity, and Cartographer™ allows Amyris’ world-class team of scientists to access that potential and deliver renewable solutions for our customers," said Sunil Chandran, Chief Technology Officer. "We see this platform accelerating the transformation of industries and enabling a future where biomanufacturing is not just an alternative to traditional sourcing, but a design tool that can offer new functionalities that were never available before."
Who is Cartographer™ for?
The new platform notably provides a much-needed entry point into biotech for companies new to synthetic biology or with limited R&D capacity. Today, Amyris uses Cartographer™ to serve numerous customers, including major multinational companies in diverse end-markets. With Cartographer™, Amyris plans to build on its commercial portfolio of molecules that hundreds of millions of people around the world use every day.
Lisa Roessler, Chief Commercial Officer of Amyris, commented, "In just the last few years, we’ve seen a significant shift across sectors facing long-term headwinds, leading to an urgent need for more nimble and resilient ingredient sourcing and manufacturing capabilities. Cartographer™ is the platform that meets the demands of this critical moment for several industries, including those that have not yet embraced biological chemistry."
Contact us to learn more about how Cartographer™ can support your discovery pipeline. Read more about how Cartographer™ works from the scientists who built it.
