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The equipment has been installed and has been running for at least a week now. I'm not sure why it hasn't been PR'd. It could have something to do with the S-1 pending. I'm not sure.
But Jon ended up not needing to fly out to Vietnam to conduct any training. The equipment manufacturers were able to do all the necessary training. I still think Jon will head out there soon. It may be to shepherd this first massive batch.
Also, the website was supposed to be online and running a couple weeks ago. But we are literally looking at an "any day now" situation for the official launch.
hopefully it moves the needle upwards. still think the market needs some credibility from kim
And just a reminder, the most spider silk that had been produced to make a garment, in the entire world, is a planket thats 9 feet by 6 feet. And it is kept in a glass case. Kraig labs is changing that. I think we'll see a prototype launch in the next week or 2
I want to give my thoughts on production amounts and how it ties to commercial success.
There has been this false benchmark that "metric tonnes" is needed for success or proof of concept. While i'm sure Kraig Labs is going to get there very soon, it is not necessary to have many metric tonnes to sustain a revenue stream for this company.
We've talked about "pivots" in this industry before. Most notably Bolt Threads "pivoting" away from fibers and going towards mushroom leather. Or, Spiber, Inc. pivoting away from "spider silk" proteins towards "brewed proteins". Well, Kraig Labs has "pivoted" as well. They did that a year ago when they signed this contract with the Kings Group.
The original plan was to sell B2B. Kraig Labs was going to sell their fibers/fabrics to large apparel companies and likely by the tonne. I think a solid price per tonne would have been $250k-$300k. For an incredible product like spider silk, and being in it's infancy, the demand would be high enough to support those (and even higher) prices.
But Kraig Labs pivoted. And there's evidence of that in their PR today. Jon says "Our partnership with Kings and the Spydasilk brand gives us a very exciting direct-to-consumer sales channel,". The company has decided not to leave the massive amounts of money on the table by just selling fabric, but now selling direct to consumer products where the margins are much higher.
Let's do a thought experiment with an example that most of us are familiar with:
Bolt Threads launched their 50 neck ties made from a spider silk analogue. They sold out immediately. Their CEO claimed that each tie contained 50-60 grams of their analogue silk. They sold each tie (direct-to-consumer) for $314.15 a piece (almost assuredly at a loss for them due to the enormous expense of protein production). Well, if your product weighs 60 grams, that means 1 metric tonne of fiber could make more than 16,000 of those ties. If you sold 16,000 of those ties for $314.15 each, that single metric tonne of silk would generate over $5 million in sales. That is a HUGE difference than just a contract to sell spider silk by the tonne. Kim realized this and pivoted to a direct to consumer model where his spider silk will generate 10-20 times more sales than just fabric. Even splitting the revs in half with Kings would generate $2.5 million per tonne for Kraig Labs. This is just one example. These ties weren't even directed at the luxury consumer demographic.
You can easily see now why Kim pivoted to this model. $314 for a tie made out of an incredible and novel material that hardly anyone has might even be on the cheap end. Hell, I have Egyptian cotton sheets that cost me almost $500, and that's not new or very rare at all.
This was the Dragon Silk that was created without the new screening equipment which is supposed to get us up to atleast 10x production. This shipment was always going to be relatively small compared to what they'll be pumping out once that equipment is online (if not already)
This is very good. This is the PR that was going to be PR'd last week but was postponed because of the website.
I love the "family of products". Maybe we see a whole line (Jackets, shirts, pants, shoes, etc)
good find
Prototype/launch imminent, IMO
She used to work in Lewis's lab at Utah State University developing spider silk proteins. I won't say anything else. She is not a public figure and should be awarded a degree of privacy.
Can someone explain how a tiny company like KBLB can get the jump on huge companies like J and J and others in building elaborate proteins that are covered by these announced patents? Why could KBLB do this work and the other huge companies could not for some reason?
The glacial pace of those Notre Dame patents is the reason Kraig Labs began using Workman Nydegger as their patent attorneys. Workman has a client list with many fortune 100 companies so I have a good feeling they'll get these new apps granted as soon as possible.
Plus, the old ND tech is now outdated compared to these new patent apps, which also includes the Knock in/out app a few months ago.
But still, you're right, I expect them to be granted soon as well. They've already been granted in a lot of strategically geographical locations (most notably the EU), so i suspect the US is next.
Even getting the old apps granted will be nice. It'll put a moat around us against competitors
It sounds to me that KBLB revolutionized the protein production business
I also believe that proof of this method could be quite valuable for KBLB.
Wish I knew how far along they were in establishing the practicality of the method but we will only know more when KBLB reports further.
Read the news and while I understand the expectation that funds will expand production (a good thing assuming the $$$ is just a loan and not part of further dilution), it also suggests they don’t expect production in the short/medium term to cover costs and other expenses.
I don’t think this patent has been awarded
It has simply reached the time (18 months after filing) when the patent office publishes the application for everyone to see
Incredible News!.
The RS took us down from $.50 to where we are now. I wonder what taking it off the table now does to the share price?
This is the organic growth everyone has begged for. It means Kim thinks we can get to $4 naturally once we have sales.
This was great to finally see
Excellent find.
Those descriptions have a much clearer meaning after reading through their new tech.
This is also a good time to remind people that these patent apps aren't new. They were just published today for the public. But this tech was filed to the patent office 18 months ago, which means it's been in development for much longer. This tech is closer to realization than some think.
Below is the full text from the PR:
KRAIG BIOCRAFT LABORATORIES EXPANDS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PORTFOLIO
ANN ARBOR, Mich., – August 5, 2021 –Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc. (OTCQB: KBLB) (“Company”), the leading developer of spider silk based fibers, announces today that the Company has further expanded its leading position in the development of recombinant spider silk with the filing of two new patent applications. These new innovative patents build upon underlying knock-in/knock-out gene-editing technologies that the Company first made public in 2020.
The technologies covered with these patents expand on the Company’s nearly pure spider silk genetic engineering systems allowing for larger, more complex, and more diverse protein production systems.
Leveraging in situ auto assembly of large and complex proteins, the first, of these two patents, allows for the creation of silks that incorporate multiple sets of mechanical and chemical properties that cannot be created by conventional gene editing means. Kraig Labs developed this new system to address the limits on size and complexity of protein synthesis available from the world’s leading recombinant gene manufacturers. The Company expects that this new method will produce silks with complexities and scope that have never been seen before, in nature or in the laboratory.
The second patent propels the Company’s developments in gene editing beyond the traditional heavy chain fibroin component of silk. This new research and development avenue opens the doors for the co-production of complementary proteins. This evolution in research delivers on the Company’s vision for its transgenic silkworms as host platforms for tailored cosmetic and pharmacological proteins. This new system leverages the cost-effective and eco-responsible protein system that all of the Company’s technologies are built on.
The Company filed both of these patent applications under the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) process as well as filing utility patents in the United States of America. The broad nature of the PCT application will allow the Company to protect its technologies across the globe.
“Our research team continues to impress, bring new and innovative ideas to transcend what others may see as a technological limitation,” said COO Jon Rice. “The portfolio of IP that our team is building, together with the resulting silk technologies it has produced, leaves me very optimistic for the future of Kraig Labs, our spider silk technologies, and beyond.”
Hi everyone. I wanted to give my preliminary thoughts after reading both of the Kraig Labs patent apps that were published today (1/20/2020) by the US Patent and Trademark office.
The first patent app is entitled:
“Synthesis of Non-Native Proteins in Bombyx Mori by Modifying Sericin Expression”
This patent is absolutely brilliant because it is utilizing a process that normal sericulture views as waste.
In normal sericulture, the silkworm produces sericin that is coated on the outside of the the silk. This protein is undesirable in the silk making processed so in the normal silk making process, cocoons are soaked in hot water until the sericin dissolves, and the cocoon can then spin freely. What’s left, is a sericin rich water that is normally discarded.
What Kraig Labs has wisely done is to replace the sericin gene with a non-native protein target gene. This way, during the normal silk making process, the byproduct isn’t a sericin rich water, it is a bath filled with high concentrations of a target protein.
Here are some of the proteins they have targeted as examples (some of you might remember me suggesting in the past that some of these would be good targets):
Scleroproteins (ie. collagen, elastin, fibrin, keratin): These proteins are used in a lot of industries, but maybe most notably in the cosmetic industry.
Proinsulin: Proinsulin (which eventually matures into insulin) is a target I’ve been bringing up for a long time, but it is nice to see it confirmed in this patent app. This industry is massive, it generates $10’s of billions a year in revenue. If Kraig Labs can produce insulin, or other therapeutic proteins, for cheaper than the current method (microbial protein production), than they become a buyout target for any big pharma company. And remember, this would be a by-product of their sericulture process.
Human Growth Hormones: Anyone can look up the economics of producing HGH, but the bottom line is that its about a $4 billion dollar business.
Human Interferons: I won’t go too far into details because this field is so vast, but in essence these are how a lot of cells communicate with each other in the body.
Factor XIII: I don’t know why I was so surprised to see this in the patent app, but it totally makes sense. This is the enzyme that people, who suffer from Hemophilia A, genetically lack. The current standard of treatment for people who have severe forms of this disease are required to inject synthetic versions (Enzyme Replacement Therapy) of Factor VIII up to 2-3 times a week. If you follow biotech companies like Sangamo (partnered with Pfizer), or Biomarin, than you’ve probably seen the battle thats playing out regarding Hemophilia A, Factor VIII, and other treatments. It is a cash cow for these companies.
The above were only the examples that were available in this patent app, but it has confirmed what some of us have suspected for a while: Kraig Labs is creating a wholly differentiated protein production platform that is highly efficient. This could put a lot of microbial protein producers out of business (i.e., Spiber, Bolt Threads, Amsilk, and even other platforms).
This is EXACTLY how you onshore sericulture back to developed countries. Kraig Labs has created a way to make a by-product that might even be more valuable than the target product (i.e. spider silk fibers). Weight for weight, sericin is about a third of the cocoon. So theoretically, for every 2 tonnes of finish spider silk product, you could produce 1 ton of the target protein (Kraig Labs is knocking out all three sericin genes so no sericin will be produced if not desired).
This is an incredible way to add value to the system, and it’s a complete shake-up of the sericulture industry. This innovation, coupled with the non-mulberry diet transgenic silkworms is how sericulture will easily be profitable in countries with higher labor wages.
———————————————————————————————
PART 2
The second patent app published today (1/20/2020) might be even more exciting. It is titled:
“Synthesis of High Molecular Weight Proteins Using Inteins”
They were very clever to not disclose the final version of this title when it was first presented to us in the S-1/A filings a couple years ago. Specifically, they left out the term “Inteins”. I assume they did this to keep their cards as close to their vest as long as possible until they absolutely needed to disclose it.
Inteins are pretty amazing and scientists are only now starting to scratch the surface with what they can do. In essence, they can be used to couple two proteins together, and then automatically excise themselves from the protein structure. A lot of work in other fields is to use them for the timing of drug delivery.
Kraig Labs, however, is using them to make their already high molecular weight spider silk proteins, EVEN LARGER!
And not by just double or triple, but by basically as many as they want (I’m sure there’s a theoretical or metabolic limit for the organism). They are doing this by cutting these inteins in half and adding them as couplings at the ends of each of their proteins. These inteins seek each other out, bind, and then remove themselves from the protein chain. And since silks are what are considered fibrous proteins (as opposed to globular, disordered, or membrane type proteins), they can keep coupling together as long as the inteins keep locating each other. This could quickly turn a 500 kDa protein into 1000, 1500, 2000 kDa or more.. The company doesn’t have to disclose their limits so who knows what they are.
This is an incredible breakthrough that will have direct correlation with the mechanical properties of the recombinant silk. This could make many different fibers obsolete, even Aramids (kevlar) and UHMWPEs like dyneema and Spectra because Kraig Labs can decide how many (if any) strength or flexibility motifs they want to include in their final sequences.
But probably the best part of this was how the patent app also covers anyone who tries to do this with the microbial protein production process. Like I’ve said before, companies like Spiber, Bolt Threads, and Amsilk don’t use a proprietary process to make proteins. So now, Kraig Labs gives them a death blow to any process they might think to use inteins for microbeial produced proteins. I’m guessing this is why Kraig didn’t disclose that they were using these amazing molecules. Those microbial protein producing companies still wouldn’t have had a chance for many reasons (most notably cost and low production yields), but this is the dagger in the heart. Bolt Threads has already recognized this, hence their public admittance that mycelium leather is their sole focus. But for the other goo guys, this might be the straw that breaks their back.
All-in-all, there are a lot of great things to be gleaned from these 2 patent apps. I’ll be spending a lot more time on them but I wanted to give you guys my initial thoughts.
These are VERY exciting times for Kraig Labs. They really are building a future in their laboratory.
They probably got those products from somewhere else.
Any idea when that was taped?
Thank you FZA! This is great!
This is probably that best thing they have put out (marketing wise) in a long time.
Jon showing medical devices like artificial valves made with our silk was amazing.
I recommend everyone watch this:
Kraig Labs on BBC
This is how Jon gets new eyes on our company
I’ll continue to believe they can be a serious competitor … at $30 to $50/kilo.
Still, Spiber shows every sign of working on brewed proteins and understands the price point they need to meet.
Brewed Protein materials can be processed into a variety of forms, with examples ranging from delicate filament fibers with a silky sheen to spun yarns that boast features such as cashmere-like softness or the renowned thermal and moisture-wicking properties of wool.
I wrote many posts on this subject a couple years ago.
Here is a link to one of them. It is post 142435
POST 142435
In it I give a link to just one of the many publications on economics of the bioprocess and protein fermentation.
Here is a quick link to that publication. The whole thing is available in PDF form, but starting from section 11-44 with Human Insulin is a good start:
BioProcess Design and Economics, 2nd Edition
If you couple this reading with the published patent by Bolt Threads and Spiber, you will see that all the protein production companies use very similar materials and methods.
If Spiber somehow figured out how to produce custom proteins for, say, less than $20,000/kg, then they wouldn't be wasting there time on spider silk. They would be falling hand over fist trying to license their process to every pharmaceutical and protein production manufacturer on the planet. There would be many 100's of $billions of low hanging fruit before they would ever need to get to spider silk fibers. The truth is, Spiber doesn't have this process. Neither did Bolt Threads which is why they pivoted to mushroom leather.
Delivery is not the proof-of-concept. Fiber production is. There is no doubt that when supply chain issues get resolved in southeast asia, that deliveries for many companies (not just KBLB) will be fulfilled.
Just like there is no doubt that a fiber can be woven into a textile, as long as you have the quantity to run it on the proper machinery.
Furthermore, there is no doubt that a piece of spider silk fabric can be subsequently made into a shirt or any other piece of clothing. So an end product isn't proof of concept for Kraig Labs.
KBLB doesn't need weavers and a delivery service to prove they have a product. All they need is mass production of fibers.
It is nice that Kraig Labs wants to be vertically integrated and be a part of the end product. It means that they will be able to keep more revenues for themselves, as apposed to the original plan to just sell fibers. But like I said, it's not necessary for Kraig labs proof-of-concept. That has always just been mass production of spider silk fiber
It didn't state that:
Kraig Labs should have metric ton capacity by the 5th generation next month
This new lab will allow for in-process genetic screening and the tools to immediately increase our output by at least ten times and our vision of metric ton scale spider silk production.”
Excellent news.
Kraig Labs should have metric ton capacity by the 5th generation next month.
I don't really care if we get news of delivery or weaves being completed. Originally, our product was fiber. That is all I care about as a proof of concept.
I have no doubt that if we create fibers, we can get them woven and subsequently shipped somewhere, so fiber production is what I'm waiting for.
Once we have that news, Kraig Labs becomes a real company with something tangible, desirable, and valuable for the market.
If we get fiber production news soon, I will be very happy
None of which was referred to or implied in my post, sir.
the flyover view of nothing in particular as just one example.
gonna have to call BS on this
Good thing the gene sequence has already been published and the Chinese are working with Randy Lewis
<< I kept hearing we didn't have any patents. >>
Once again, KBLB DOESN'T have any patents.
They only have a few patent applications.
China has had the spider silk sequences for years:
Sickzone, you did not retrieve the correct patent.
My favorite part is:
GB FG4D F: IP right grant
EUROPEAN PATENT GRANTED
2021-06-02
Will we?
For anyone who doesn't believe that Bolt Threads (KBLBs main competitor) hasn't pivoted away from spider silk, and is now fully focused on mushroom leather, check out their instagram post from June 20th.
The Caption:
boltthreads
These days the scientists at Bolt are steadily inspired by fungi, but we’ll never stop being in awe of spiders. Our debut biomaterial, Microsilk™, was inspired by the proteins that make up their ingenious webs. By harnessing the power of bioengineering, we developed a process produce the protein in large quantities through fermentation, using yeast, sugar, and water. Visit the link in bio to learn more.
Someone's response:
This available yet?
Bolts response to their question:
boltthreads
Our sustainable alternative to leather made from mycelium, Mylo™ is closer to commercial readiness and so it’s become our top priority. As of right now, we are not selling Microsilk commercially and we are not taking on any new development partners. But you never know what the future may hold! ??
----------
Plus, Every Job req on their website having to do with R&D/Production mentions experience with mycelium. There hasn't been a job req that requires protein fermentation in the last year from what I've seen.
This is the same tech that Spiber and amsilk uses. Our "competitors" will never make commercially feasible spider silk. Unfortunately, they are just now coming to that realization.
From the last 10q to this one, we have diluted about 12 million shares. That's less than 1.5%. thats not too bad in a quarter where we are diluting for the purpose of raising capital.
We now have $3.6 million in the bank. I say it's well worth it.
Really?
Lots of dilution…..
Holy $H*t!!!
last month they signed a 5 year lease for a 36,000 sq meter property in vietnam. Thats more than 380,000 sqft, or about 9 acres. Our last property in vietnam was "only" 4,560 sq meters. But this new one is likely a mix of building/land.
This must be the start of Phase 2 campus they talked about a while ago.
Maybe the vietnam lockdowns gave them the opportunity to lease some large properties on the cheap.