Nethaji Gallage - SynBioBeta 2020

Nethaji Gallage is the CEO and co-founder of Octarine, Copenhagen based, biotech company. Octarine’s mission is to harness synthetic biology to develop functionally superior cannabinoid and psilocybin derivatives targeting the pharmaceutical industry and improving the health and well-being of people worldwide. Natural cannabinoids suffer limitations as pharmaceutical therapeutics due to inherent issues such as insolubility, psychoactivity, chemical stability and low bioavailability. Octarine has developed in-cell enzymatic platforms to expand the chemical diversity of cannabinoids allowing the production of superior molecules with improved chemical and pharmacokinetic properties. Psilocybin and other psychedelic tryptamine derivatives are gaining momentum as breakthrough therapies for neurological and psychological disorders. Development of this unique class of molecules is hindered however by limited access to a reliable and cost-effective supply. Octarine’s biosynthetic platform provides scalable and cost-effective production of a range of natural and novel tryptamine derivatives for application as pharmaceutical drugs. Previously, Nethaji was a research group leader at University of Copenhagen. She obtained her PhD in Biochemistry and has a track record of several high impact publications and patents within the field of synthetic biology. Nethaji has previously led research on biosynthetic production of vanillin flavour from idea to commercialization with industrial partners.