BOSTON–Ginkgo Bioworks reported a narrower net loss for the third quarter of 2026 and announced the sale of an autonomous laboratory system to pharmaceutical company Novo for its new research and development facility in Waltham, Massachusetts, as the company expands its automated research operations and artificial intelligence-driven laboratory services.
The biotechnology company reported third-quarter revenue of $28 million, down 6% from $29 million in the same period last year. Revenue increased from $20 million in the second quarter of 2026.
Ginkgo’s net loss from continuing operations narrowed to $41 million from $73 million a year earlier, while its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) improved to a loss of $22 million from a loss of $53 million.
The company ended September with approximately $285 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. Cash burn during the quarter totaled $27 million.
Alongside its financial results, Ginkgo outlined its strategy of expanding two business segments built around a common autonomous laboratory platform: laboratory equipment sales and cloud-based research services.
“Ginkgo now has two core offerings built on one autonomous lab platform,” said Jason Kelly, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ginkgo Bioworks. “This quarter we announced the sale of an autonomous lab to a top-tier pharma company, Novo, alongside new government wins with ARPA-H and the NSF. Our Cloud Lab runs experiments on Nebula, the world’s largest autonomous lab, giving pharma an onshore alternative to overseas CROs and giving frontier AI labs a new engine for training data. With the U.S. government now treating autonomous labs as national infrastructure, we believe Ginkgo is well positioned to lead the transition from the bench to autonomous research.”
The agreement with Novo involves the installation of an autonomous laboratory at the pharmaceutical company’s new Waltham research and development site. The system will incorporate Ginkgo’s Reconfigurable Automation Carts (RACs) and Catalyst technology, which are designed to automate laboratory workflows and reduce the need for manual experimentation.
Ginkgo is also expanding its presence in government-funded research programs.
The company announced a subcontract valued at up to $17.5 million through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health’s (ARPA-H) GIVE program. The project will incorporate Ginkgo’s laboratory automation systems into RNA medicine manufacturing.
The agreement builds on previously announced laboratory projects involving the California Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland and Northwestern University under the National Science Foundation’s Programmable Cloud Laboratories Test Bed initiative.
Ginkgo is also supporting the development of an autonomous cloud laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.
Federal initiatives are becoming an increasingly important part of the company’s strategy. Ginkgo highlighted the National Science Foundation’s approximately $400 million Programmable Cloud Laboratories Test Bed program and the federal government’s $1.5 billion X-Labs initiative.
Under the X-Labs initiative, Ginkgo is providing access to its Nebula autonomous laboratory platform, an arrangement announced by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on October 8.
Nebula, which Ginkgo describes as the world’s largest autonomous laboratory, operates more than 100 reconfigurable automation carts and supports automated experiments for pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology developers and artificial intelligence researchers.
The company’s Cloud Lab business provides contract research services, including drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics testing, gene expression analysis and antibody research.
Ginkgo reported signing 22 customers for its ADME-One service during the third quarter, including 20 companies that had not previously worked with Ginkgo.
The service focuses on absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) testing, which helps drug developers evaluate how potential therapies behave in biological systems.
The company also reported additional pharmaceutical partnerships and research agreements.
Takeda, Argenx, Lundbeck and AbbVie are founding members of Ginkgo’s Antibody Developability Consortium, while GSK, Novartis and Biogen have signed new research agreements with the company.
Ginkgo said its Cloud Lab is also being used by artificial intelligence companies, including OpenAI, to generate experimental biological datasets for training AI models.
The company is positioning automated laboratory operations as a way to produce large volumes of standardized experimental data while supporting pharmaceutical research and the development of AI systems capable of analyzing biological processes.
Ginkgo reaffirmed its full-year 2026 financial outlook, projecting total cash burn of between $125 million and $150 million.
The company’s financial performance reflects its continuing transition toward automated laboratory infrastructure and research services, with management emphasizing equipment sales, government contracts and pharmaceutical partnerships as central components of its growth strategy.
