St. Louis startup Pluton Biosciences has acquired Microbe Inotech Laboratories (MiL), a full-service microbiological lab also headquartered in St. Louis, MO. The 29-year-old laboratory is now Pluton MiL, LLC, a division of Pluton Biosciences.
 
The acquisition quantitatively accelerates the path to market for Pluton. MiL’s custom pathogen testing capabilities and identification expertise provide Pluton a foundation to build out its Micro-mining microbial discovery platform while providing contract lab discovery and testing.
 
“The team is energized by the acquisition, which will escalate Pluton’s efforts to find sustainable solutions to some of the world’s most challenging problems using its Micro-mining platform,” said Charlie Walch, chief executive officer, Pluton.
 
Pluton screens billions of microorganisms in diverse soil samples to find new bacteria, fungi and viruses to solve important environmental and medical problems. Pluton’s first discovery was new bacteria (patent pending) to kill the mosquito Aedes aegypti, which carries a number of deadly viral diseases, most prominently Zika, Dengue and Yellow Fever.
 
MiL specializes in the testing and identifying of contaminants and pathogens in environmental samples such as soil, water and food for six distinct laboratory sectors: environmental, food safety, industrial, pharmaceutical, plant science and governmental. The company has more than 100 customers that range in size from small manufacturers to Fortune 500 companies.
 
“MiL has the same lab set up, equipment and procedures that we use to find beneficial microbes in environmental samples like soil and water, so from a science standpoint, it was a turnkey operation for Pluton to continue its work Micro-mining nature’s solutions,” said Mr. Walch. “On the business side, the pathogen testing and contaminate identification performed by MiL gives Pluton an immediate revenue stream while we license our microbial discoveries to replace synthetic pesticides with safe and effective natural products.”