Beyond petrochemicals: challenges and opportunities in industrial-scale biomanufacturing

Biomanufacturing offers a sustainable alternative to petrochemical manufacturing by harnessing engineered microorganisms to convert renewable feedstocks into diverse value-added products. Systems metabolic engineering has driven its advancement, enabling rational design of microbial strains with enhanced performance and robustness. Despite these achievements, large-scale commercialisation remains limited, highlighting the persistent gap between laboratory success and industrial deployment. We examine the challenges and opportunities in advancing biomanufacturing towards industrial implementation through two cases, succinic acid and polyhydroxyalkanoates, that exemplify products nearing, yet not fully reaching, commercial maturity. Finally, we discuss how integrating artificial intelligence with systems metabolic engineering can accelerate sustainable biomanufacturing. Biomanufacturing holds promise as an alternative to the petrochemical industry, with benefits including increased sustainability as well as improved supply chain resilience, a factor of particular importance in times of geopolitical instability. Here the authors explore both the challenges and opportunities in progressing biomanufacturing from laboratory successes towards industrial-scale deployment.