Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc (KBLB)

[es1]

There is little doubt in my mind that the Spiber/Xpiber silk will be significantly more expensive, but the fact that they are harvesting proteins means that they may have more versatile uses than the fibers alone such as films and possibly 3D printed materials made from spider silk proteins such as implants or stronger tools. You can already see this being attempted in companies such as Oxford Biomaterials Ltd. and Spiber Technologies AB.

The thing is that it isnt going to be just a little more expensive.

Their process is to powder the silk from silk worms.
Then produce the spider protien. They have to seperate the spider protein and then powder that. Then mix the 2 and spin it.

Since MS has the spider included KBLB could do the same process by powdering MS and respinning it. That would be a huge waste of time and money obviously.
So their costs for silk will be the same as KBLB cost for spider silk. Everything they have to do is extra.

As far as fabricated parts they are pretty far behind amsilk who already has foams films and powders of spider silk.

There is plenty of room for other companies in the spidersilk industry but KBLB has the cheapest process by far and if they find a way to produce 100% spider protien there wont be an ecoli vat that can compete with the powders etc.

Also, i do not think that they grow and harvest the silkworms themselves, but they likely buy from an already established source.

Well "they" would be the silk industry in japan and I am sure that they do outsource the production to lower cost labor but Spiber will either need to buy silk from the industry or produce their own. If they buy it their costs are even higher. If they produce their own they will need to find a silk farm like KBLB did and go through the whole ramp up process.

IMO Spiber will eventually fail because of the cost of their product will be undercut by others like KBLB with a less expensive process