Gene synthesis specialist Evonetix has established a collaboration analogue technology company Analog Devices, Inc in which the two companies will work together on the development and commercial scale-up of Evonetix’s proprietary microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based silicon chips and accelerate the development of Evonetix’s first product, a DNA desktop writer. Evonetix’s novel silicon chip controls the synthesis of DNA at many thousands of independently controlled reaction sites or ‘pixels’ on the chip surface in a highly parallel fashion. The two companies began working together in January 2019 and have now agreed to extend the collaboration as Evonetix continues to work with Analog Garage, Analog Devices’ corporate innovation lab, to jointly develop an integrated solution that includes the MEMS platform, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) to miniaturize the control electronics, and a flow cell. Analog Devices will assist with the commercial scale-up of the technology, and manufacture devices for the desktop DNA writers.

The collaboration is intended to enable the creation of de novo high-fidelity DNA at scale. Evonetix’s DNA synthesis technology, which will be sold to laboratories as a ‘plug and play’ desktop instrument, will synthesize DNA at extremely accuracy, scale and speed, in order to accelerate scientists’ ability to use DNA-based technology on a scale not currently possible and thereby have a large impact on the global health care sector.