Ginkgo Bioworks has completed the first milestone of its partnership with Merck (MSD), which focuses on improving biologic manufacturing. This stage of the agreement includes a payment of $9 million in cash to Ginkgo, which was part of an initiative to build a leading platform for biosecurity and cell programming.

The partnership will now work towards the second milestone, which will focus on continuing to improve on the production process by deploying strain engineering, high-throughput screening and process development capabilities.