Twist Bioscience Launches Long Oligos to Fuel Drug Development, DNA Data Storage and Gene Editing Research

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ: TWST), a company enabling customers to succeed through its offering of high-quality synthetic DNA using its silicon platform, today announced the launch of its long oligonucleotides, or oligos, product line. At up to 300 bases, or nucleotides, in length this is the longest commercial oligo offering by continuous chemical synthesis in the industry. Twist believes that these synthetic oligos will increase the success and productivity of biological research.

Historically, making oligos longer than 150-200 bases has been extremely difficult due to chemical reaction inefficiencies. The addition of each base in the sequence introduces the risk of error because of the complex chemistry required to complete the synthesis. Twist has developed a proprietary way to make oligos up to 300 bases, with an industry-leading error rate as low as 1:1500 nucleotides.

“This new product launch provides Twist with a competitive advantage not only in oligo pool products, where longer oligos are useful in drug discovery and development, but also in data storage, where longer pieces of DNA can store more digital data per strand. In addition, longer oligos are uniquely enabling for certain CRISPR gene editing and protein engineering applications, where researchers can substantially increase their productivity. We believe there are additional applications where longer oligos will lead to more robust research discoveries, and we’re excited to be a part of pushing this science further,” said Emily M. Leproust, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Twist Bioscience.

With this technical achievement and commercial product launch spearheaded by Patrick Weiss, senior vice president of research and development and general manager of data storage for Twist Bioscience, he and Twist Bioscience hold the record for the longest oligonucleotide synthesis at scale.

“Synthesis of long oligonucleotides at scale requires significantly optimized engineering solutions to prevent errors including deletions, substitutions, insertions and fragmentations, which typically compound substantially with longer pieces of DNA,” commented Mr. Weiss. “Having been integrally involved in the DNA synthesis industry for 25 years, achieving this commercial milestone in a production environment is a true testament to the strength of the team and the robust technology.”

For more information about long oligonucleotides, please visit: https://www.twistbioscience.com/products/oligopools.

About Twist Bioscience Corporation

Twist Bioscience is a leading and rapidly growing synthetic biology company that has developed a disruptive DNA synthesis platform to industrialize the engineering of biology. The core of the platform is a proprietary technology that pioneers a new method of manufacturing synthetic DNA by “writing” DNA on a silicon chip. Twist is leveraging its unique technology to manufacture a broad range of synthetic DNA-based products, including synthetic genes, tools for next-generation sequencing (NGS) preparation, and antibody libraries for drug discovery and development. Twist is also pursuing longer-term opportunities in digital data storage in DNA and biologics drug discovery. Twist makes products for use across many industries including healthcare, industrial chemicals, agriculture and academic research.

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Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained herein are forward-looking statements reflecting the current beliefs and expectations of management made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that may cause Twist Bioscience’s actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the risks and uncertainties of the ability to attract new customers and retain and grow sales from existing customers; risks and uncertainties of rapidly changing technologies and extensive competition in synthetic biology could make the products Twist Bioscience is developing obsolete or non-competitive; uncertainties of the retention of a significant customer; risks of third party claims alleging infringement of patents and proprietary rights or seeking to invalidate Twist Bioscience’s patents or proprietary rights; and the risk that Twist Bioscience’s proprietary rights may be insufficient to protect its technologies. For a further description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to Twist Bioscience’s business in general, see Twist Bioscience’s risk factors set forth in Twist Bioscience’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on December 20, 2018 and Twist Bioscience’s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2019 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 1, 2019. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof, and Twist Bioscience specifically disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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