»The conditions for start-ups in Brandenburg are ideal« – Interview with Potsdam Science Park Ambassador Jan Degen

The technological breakthrough came less than two years after the company was founded. »Shortly before Christmas, we held the first new molecules in our hands,« says Jan Degen, one of the two founders of the Potsdam-based start-up kez.biosolutions, which produces completely new active substances as candidates for drug development. »We have thus proven that our idea works.«

The idea behind kez.biosolutions is a new way of producing potentially valuable medical substances modelled on nature. Over millions of years, evolution has produced active substances that help bacteria or plants, for example, to defend themselves against predators. Enzyme machines in the cells of microbes and other living organisms produce these natural substances, called polyketides, by biosynthesis.

To make the most promising natural polyketides usable for humans—for example to develop new drugs against antibiotic resistance—they have to be chemically modified. This is normally done after biosynthesis, but this takes a lot of time and only works to a limited extent due to the complexity of the molecules. For this reason, hardly any new polyketides are developed and authorised as drugs.

The biochemists at kez.biosolutions want to change this. They are intervening at an early stage and changing the biosynthesis process itself. »Put simply, we teach the bacteria which active ingredients we want—and they produce them for us,« says Degen. »In this way, we can create new substances that pharmaceutical companies and basic researchers need and open up countless promising polyketides from nature for use in humans.«

But what exactly happens in the lab? The biochemists at kez.biosolutions modify the genome of the bacteria in a way that they produce enzyme machines according to a specific blueprint. They replace one enzyme in the machine with a modified enzyme called selectase®, which then produces the desired polyketides. If the bacteria are now multiplied and supplied with specially developed feeding substrates in a bioreactor, they can serve as virtually inexhaustible and sustainable biofactories for the desired molecules.

Jan Degen, who studied business informatics and previously worked in the management of a company in the event industry in Munich, has found a new calling in kez.biosolutions. An old school friend from his days in Mainz, Alexander Rittner, a biochemist with a doctorate, introduced him to his start-up idea at the end of 2021. »I told him that science was new territory for me, but that I could cover everything related to business. It was immediately clear to me that we would work well together,« says Degen. Less than three weeks later, the two were sitting at the notary’s office. »After the coronavirus pandemic, I urgently wanted to use my energy for a cause that would ultimately result in something worthwhile.« Degen, who describes himself as the operations guy of the team, has dedicated himself to building the company since it was founded in early 2022 and to enabling the scientists to focus on their lab work. Mirko Joppe, a fellow doctoral student of Alexander Rittner, was the first employee to join at the end of that year.

The team found suitable premises in the GO:IN Innovation Centre of the Potsdam Science Park—first an address with a desk, then offices and laboratories. The Golm location management team supported them with the right contacts for qualified start-up and funding advice. »For the first few months, we kept our heads above water with our own financial resources, then we acquired our first funding,« says Degen. The Investitionsbank des Landes Brandenburg, a regional promotional bank, subsidised purchases for the lab and partially reimbursed staff costs. In 2023, kez.biosolutions received another 50 per cent reimbursement of further investment costs through the regional ‘Gründung innovativ’ programme.

»The conditions for start-ups in Brandenburg are ideal,« says Degen.

The scientific idea behind kez.biosolutions was the result of years of basic research. As a postdoc at the University of Frankfurt am Main, Alexander Rittner developed a process in which the chemical element fluorine is incorporated into the polyketide erythromycin (an antibiotic) in the test tube (in vitro). The results were published in the renowned journal Nature Chemistry in 2022. Based on this, kez.biosolutions is now developing a process that can be used to produce desired molecules directly in bacteria (in vivo). At the end of 2022, kez.biosolutions patented the enzyme selectase®—the core of the technology.

After the technological breakthrough at the end of 2024, Rittner and Degen decided to expand at the Potsdam Science Park. Two biological-technical assistants joined the team. They have built up a digital library containing several million new molecules. An artificial intelligence system is currently analysing which of these are promising enough to make a therapeutic benefit likely. »We can bring the most exciting candidates into reality within weeks,« says Degen. »Our molecule library is like a Lego construction kit that can be used in many medical fields, for example for cancer drugs, new antibiotics or preparations for healthy ageing.«

The kez.biosolutions team is currently developing a test kit with almost 1,000 new polyketide-based molecules, known as fragments. Pharmaceutical companies and researchers will be able to use these fragments for their drug development. Once they have identified certain mechanisms or targets in the body that trigger diseases, they can test the fragments from kez.biosolutions on them—and ideally develop them into new drugs.

Jan Degen sees the Potsdam Science Park as a growing centre for biotechnology start-ups in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. »It is incredibly important to have an innovation centre where start-ups can experiment and try things out,« says Degen. He has been a member of the advisory board of Standortmanagement Golm GmbH since the end of 2023, so he can actively contribute to this development. The numerous services offered by the location management, such as discounted rents for laboratories, the Welcome Service or German courses for foreign employees, he considers as extremely valuable, especially for smaller international companies and start-ups.

He also values the networking events for the local community and biannual CEO meetings. »This allows local companies to get to know each other, exchange ideas and perhaps discover that they are conducting similar experiments or using the same equipment,« says Degen. A site-wide chat group has also been set up, where people can quickly post whether anyone has any spare dry ice or pipette tips, for example. The location also allows biotech companies access to well-trained young talent from Berlin and Brandenburg. »We receive many applications from students at the University of Potsdam who would like to work here.«

Jan Degen sees his role as an ambassador for the Potsdam Science Park as an investment in the future. »I want to help the Potsdam Science Park continue to grow and create synergy effects for all researchers and companies,« he says. With every service and leisure offer that is created on site, the attractiveness increases. Not only the local infrastructure—from doctors to restaurants and gyms—is crucial for this, also a reliable transport connection to Berlin. Decisiveness is the only way to achieve a self-reinforcing effect at the location.

»This is exactly what everyone is talking about: we need a good infrastructure for innovation.«

The projects of Standortmanagement Golm GmbH in the Potsdam Science Park are cofinanced by funds from the European Union and the state of Brandenburg.
Text: Mirco Lomoth | © photo: Standortmanagement Golm GmbH/sevens[+]maltry, Adam Sevens