Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc., a developer of spider silk-based fibers, announced it was nearing completion of the second production cycle of recombinant spider silk at its Vietnamese production factory.
The company said it expects to begin shipping the specialized silk cocoons by next week. These cocoons will be turned into the first recombinant spider silk yarn from this new facility. Once complete, the yarn will be sent to the U.S. for testing and delivery to customers.
Kraig Biocraft transferred production operations in October to the Prodigy Textiles factory, its Vietnamese subsidiary. Over the past two months, the company has been scaling up this facility’s throughput, nearly tripling its skilled workforce to support its rapidly growing operations.
Chief operating officer Jon Rice is currently in Vietnam overseeing operations, assisting in preparations for this first shipment and guiding the implementation of additional operational process controls. During this trip, Rice and Prodigy Textiles’ management are also working with local government officials to assess and plan the allocation of additional land and facilities to grow Prodigy’s operations.
“Our production team continues to deliver on the lofty expectations we have outlined for them,” Rice said. “With production scale up now well under way and the first shipment scheduled for delivery soon, Prodigy management and I are pressing forward with an even greater vision of where we can take the company.”
The spider silk company expects that its factory will have capacity to produce more than 8 metric tons of its specialized fiber in 2020, with a total capacity of approximately 40 metric tons per year, once fully utilized.
Kraig Biocraft Laboritories is focused on the creation, production and marketing of high performance and technical fibers such as spider silk, which has been shown to be stronger than steel, making them suitable for use in a variety of military, industrial, and consumer applications.