Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
You are right, this is not referring to Spiber Inc. or anyone working there. This is referring to Japan’s National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS). The researcher in the video, Yoshihiko Kuwana (not Kawata), refers to the silk that created the Vest and Scarf made from spider silk last year.
Looking at their PLOS ONE article, they used the piggyBac Transposon System similar to KBLB. I assume this is the international patent conflict that is hinted at in the KBLB filings. Looking at their numbers, they look only very slightly improved from the numbers in KBLB’s PNAS article, but since Kim stated that the MS numbers have been improved since then, I don’t think their properties are as good as the current strains of Monster Silk.
I do know that they are working with the Andhra Pradesh State Sericulture Research and Development Institute (APSSRDI) in India to help research and bring their silkworms to eventual commercialization as stated by TRUTH in his post #87225. I believe they still have some work to do and may need to eventually pay royalties to The University Of Notre Dame to ultimately commercialize, but I believe they are at least worth keeping an eye on.
I thought it would be to save costs.
Any details of specific locations?
I do agree that there is a very good possibility that MS may be licensed by another company for medical and other uses. Kim did state in the 2012 conference call:
I meant actively working on it.
I would hope that Kim would focus more on the "metallic ion" embedding than the medical uses initially since it takes quite a bit of expensive and lengthy testing to be approved for medical use on humans. That and plenty of other companies have been working on it for much longer (Oxford Biomaterials Ltd., Spiber Technologies AB, Neurotex Ltd., Orthox Ltd., AMSilk GmbH, etc.), so they would have a head start in that area.
Spiber Technologies AB is focusing really heavily on creating products for the medical field. Until KBLB starts looking to get in on that, they will not be in competition with each other.
Well, i do know that they stated previously that property customization of the proteins is one of the things that they are trying to achieve. That and the fact that they will not have to wait around for homozygosity over several generations means that they can achieve a quicker result.
I do agree that KBLB can also perform a customized thread if needed at a cheaper cost, but it will take longer as you said.
Really, only time will tell how it will ultimately end up. I am sure it wil be profitable for all parties involved whatever the case.
I agree, hence my statement "Of course, if Big Red becomes what I think it will, then KBLB will have the overall advantage."
The Sept. 10, 2013 PR states:
I agree that their entire process will likely be more expensive, but they have the ability to custom design the properties of the proteins for specific applications in a relatively short period of time. They also seem to have the financial backing of many major players in Japan. I also know that their current stated goal is to produce fibers with properties that rival or exceed that of the dragline fibers of the Golden Silk Weaver spider by the point of full commercialization in 2017.
KBLB's silk will be cheaper which will be great for the budget shopper, but Spiber will be more specialized and arguably of higher quality which will be better for specialized applications assuming they meet their stated goal.
Of course, if Big Red becomes what I think it will, then KBLB will have the overall advantage. Unfortunately I just don't have that info.
Either way, when these companies take off, i doubt both of them together will have enough to meet the initial demand.
Their "Pilot Facility #2" is their full size factory currently under construction.
I don't know what building you are looking at. The Google Maps location shows the entire office complex that Spiber is located at. The satellite view and street view does not yet show their new factory (Pilot Facility #2) that is still under construction.
The first pilot facility is located in the same building as their main office. An old PR from Spiber Inc. stated that this facility has 1,400 square meters (~15,000 sq.ft.) of floor space. The new facility under construction has 6,600 square meters (~71,000 sq. ft.) of floor space.
I think that Randy Lewis is going the right direction with his silkworms, but he has just started using them and likely has not yet achieved homozygosity.
In April 2014, this was stated (Link Here)
I had contacted the KBLB IR representative, Ben, on this issue a few months back. He told me that he contacted Kim about this and was told as a response that this is not an issue with Monster Silk™.
Maybe it has to do with the CRISPR/CAS9 system that Randy Lewis used to inject the spider DNA?
I don't think that Lewis does either. That is likely why he has been trying to diversify. After all, both Nexia and he have had these goats for a quarter century now with nothing much to show for it. I suspect that Randy just keeps them around for publicity.
I have a gut feeling that Kim's decision to expand into Vietnam is the reason that Lewis decided to go his own way. The timelines of him leaving the scientific advisory board to create Araknitek and Kim's discussions with the Vietnamese government seem to support this theory as well.
Now that is interesting, thank you for sharing.
I don't think that this is old news. You are correct about Scheibel being the former CEO of AMSilk, but I believe that he has coninued his research into E.coli spider silk since then. The article itself links to a scientific article published by him last month: Click Here.
It is a patent application, but it is the only numbers that I could find, just as with Spiber Inc. Take them or leave them.
I have found some numbers from AMSilk's patent application WO2014037453A1 published March last year: https://www.google.com/patents/WO2014037453A1?cl=en
This patent shows improved numbers from their previous patent concerning fiber production.
This is compared to KBLB's PNAS numbers published in 2011: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/3/923.long
The strength comparisons of the fibers are:
AMSilk: 206.8 to 366 Mpa
KBLB: 281.9 to 338.4 Mpa.
KBLB’s fibers are slightly stronger on average.
The toughness comparisons of the fibers are:
AMSilk: 97.4 to 254 (MJ/m^3)
KBLB: 68.9 to 77.2(MJ/m^3)
AMSilk’s fibers are significantly tougher.
The Young’s Modulus comparisons of the fibers are:
AMSilk: 1400 to 4200 Mpa
KBLB: 4860.9 to 5498.1 Mpa
This means KBLB’s fibers are more rigid.
KBLB has had 2 more years to improve their fibers since the publishing of the information here and Kim has stated that the Monster Silk being used is better than the PNAS strains, so I would hope that they have surpassed these numbers posted by now with their newer strains. I would also expect that Big Red will far surpass these numbers, all likely at a significantly reduced cost.
Col317 & Zenaku,
Thank you for pointing that out. I looked at that quite a while ago and forgot about it since. It gives me a little more hope that this is going somewhere faster as soon as we can start producing commercial quantities.
I just hope that they have already been working with some of the silk thus far to test it so that we can get product out sooner.
Well, i was curious to see if he was really interested in it or not. Note that I have a working but limited knowledge of Japanese, but my wife is fluent and helped me translate this a while back.
Here it is:
Spiber Inc. Press Release
September 29, 2014
Spiber and Kojima Industries jointly agree to the construction of new buildings
The next generation biomaterial QMONOS™ (1) is developed in cooperation with Spiber Inc. and Kojima Industries Co., Ltd., which manufactures automotive goods such as interior and exterior parts. In the process of working towards mass production of QMONOS™ next-generation pilot line’s (2) introduction and development, it was decided to jointly construct a new building which has already begun. In addition, the two companies anticipate the expansion of the future of the joint venture by announcing the founding of a new company on September 26 named Xpiber Inc. (pronounced Eks-Spiber) in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan.
1. Background:
Spider threads are the toughest fibers in the world. As energy issues, such as environmental problems caused by the size of human society becomes more of a problem, not only is the fiber’s performance impressive, but also that there is extremely little environmentally harmful raw material oil required to produce it. As a result,it has attracted attention as a next-generation material, so industrialization has been expected. Spiber Inc. and Kojima Industries Co., Ltd., in 2012 created a supplementary budget for the Japanese fiscal business independent administrative agency “New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization”(NEDO) as an innovative commercialization venture, mainly of spider silk fibroin (3) of which mass production of the QMONOS ™ next generation biomaterial is based.
A prototype facility for carrying out the process demonstration and application development research called the “PROTOTYPING STUDIO” was jointly constructed and began operating in November 2013. Structures such as fibroin,molecular design of the protein, protein material produced using microorganisms, fibroin-resin composites, and a prototype evaluation and application of the product at the “PROTOTYPING STUDIO” due to an innovative empirical study environment that can be maintained consistently and allow changes to the molecular design of based on the evaluation results.This facility can produce an overwhelming production scale (about 100kg a month). This new building construction was planned with the development and introduction of its next-generation pilot line.
2. The Construction of a New Building
Spiber Inc. focused on research and development using the “PROTOTYPING STUDIO” that began running in November 2013 with the financial support of the 2012 fiscal year supplementary budget business NEDO innovative commercialization venture, focusing on culture process,purification process,and the spinning process. As a result,a lot of data and experience in the next-generation product line have been accumulated as well as many research and development achievements of Spiber Inc. and Kojima Industries. This development of next-generation pilot line is adopted as a continued fiscal support project in the 2013 NEDO innovative commercialization venture, as they have already completed the basic design of the equipment and have already began its manufacture. When completed, it will be overwhelmingly compact equipment compared to the equipment that had been introduced in November 2013 at the “PROTOTYPING STUDIO”, and will be able to expand to large scale production in steps starting from small scale. The final production capacity will produce up to 20 tons annually and have a wide range of production scale. Operability will also be dramatically improved.
In early September 2014, Spiber Inc. and Kojima Industries started jointly working to construct a new building to further development and introduction of this next-generation pilot line, enhance research and development, and increase the number of employees for the business expansion. The new building being constructed will be located on land adjacent to the “PROTOTYPING STUDIO” (about 14,000 square meters) in Tsuruoka and will be more than six times the size in total floor area.
[New Building Overview]
(1) Location: 234-1 Mizukami, Kakuganji, Tsuruoka, Yamagata, Japan, 997-0052
(2) Name: (tentative name) the second prototype Research Building
(3) Site area: about 14,000 square meters
(4) Building area: about 5,000 square meters
(5) Total floor area: about 6,600 square meters
(6) Introduced facilities: next-generation pilot line, research and development facilities, office space, etc.
(7) Construction: From early September 2014 until early 2015.
3. A New Company
In order to promote efficiency of the joint venture production of QMONOS™, Spiber Inc. and Kojima Industries founded Xpiber Inc. on September 26, 2014 in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture. Xpiber Inc., Spiber Inc., and Kojima Industries are three companies that will work in the “PROTOTYPING STUDIO”,and are expected to continue to jointly expand and promote the business by utilizing their next generation pilot line.
[SUMMARY of the New Company]
Company name: Xpiber Inc.
Representative Director: Sekiyama, Kazuhide
Main Office Location: 246-2 Mizukami, Kakuganji, Tsuruoka, Yamagata, Japan, 997-0052
Established: September 26, 2014
Capital: ¥450 million
[Origin of the Xpiber Name]
1. The protein conceals unknown and potentially infinite possibilities, represented by the letter "X"
2. The combining of the two companies can be represented by the letter "X"
(Spiber Inc. X Kojima Industries)
4. Acknowledgment
The next generation biomaterial QMONOS™ is made possible with the support of Yamagata Prefecture / Tsuruoka, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Tohoku Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry, National Institute of Advanced New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) Japan Science and Technology Agency, and small and medium-sized enterprises. Thank you for your support of our infrastructure, research, and development
.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) QMONOS ™: Refers to the high-performance biomaterial that is made from proteins as a raw material rather than the existing petroleum-derived chemical fiber. This material has a high level of impact energy-absorbing (toughness), elasticity, and low weight. It is said that these properties are what people dream of in a material. Energy and environmental problems are a global issue and it has been desired for the next generation material to have a low environmental impact without the need for oil as a raw material.
(2)Takes advantage of the achievements and funding of the "innovative commercialization venture" by the independent Japanese administrative agency “New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization” (NEDO).
(3)Fibroin: A protein that forms a fiber. It is the main component of the thread that insects, arachnids, and silkworms make.
5. Auxiliary Information
[About Spiber Inc.]
Representative Executive Officer: Sekiyama, Kazuhide
Main Office Location: 246-2 Mizukami, Kakuganji, Tsuruoka, Yamagata, Japan, 997-0052
Established: September 26, 2007
Capital: ¥780,330,000
Number of employees: 63 people (Including 20 Yamagata Prefecture graduates)
Homepage: http: //www.spiber.jp
[About Kojima Industries]
Representative: President Kojima, Yoichiro
Main Office Location: 3-30 Shimoichiba-cho, Toyota-shi, Aichi-ken, Japan 471-8588
Established: May 20, 1938
Capital: ¥450 million
Number of employees: 1,625 people
Homepage: http: //www.kojima-tns.co.jp
I don't think that they will fail because there will be a demand for the proteins and what can be made with them, but I agree that KBLB will have a definate edge as far a price is concerned for any fibers developed.
It may be why they are shifting their focus away from fibers.
Well, I fear that there may not be much news to promote at this point.
With the delay of Vietnam and the long process of testing the fibers at WM, I don't think there has been much progress on the commercialization front. Also, if there is anything that has happened in the last few months, Kim has been forced silent by the S-1 approval process.
The only positive news that I have seen recently is the hiring of Jon Rice which could be PR'ed likely because it is included in the recent S-1 amendment. Everything that I have found out about him seems to be very positive and I think that he will be able to carry this company further than Kim alone and utilize his contacts and skills to market MS effectively. I am sure that we all have high expectations of him, but considering his past performance, I feel that he is up to the task.
Kim wants to maintain control of his company and maximize his profits over the long term. He even acknowledged that the current path to commercialization is causing the pps to slip, but still believes that it will rise with future news of commercialization.