Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST): History, Ownership, Mission, How It Works & Makes Money

How does a company like Twist Bioscience Corporation manage to become the backbone of modern synthetic biology, growing revenue by 20% in a challenging market? You need to understand the proprietary silicon-based DNA synthesis platform that allowed them to report a record 2025 fiscal year revenue of $376.6 million, up from $313.3 million in 2024, while simultaneously boosting their gross margin to 50.7%. This is defintely not just a biotech story; it's a manufacturing one, so let's dive into the history, mission, and unique business model that makes their technology a critical enabler for everything from drug discovery to data storage.

Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST) History

You're looking for the foundational story of Twist Bioscience Corporation, and honestly, it's a classic Silicon Valley tale of disruption meeting a massive, entrenched market: DNA synthesis. The company's journey isn't just a steady climb; it's a series of aggressive, calculated moves to industrialize biology, which is defintely the core of their value proposition today.

Twist Bioscience Corporation's Founding Timeline

Year established

Twist Bioscience Corporation was established in 2013.

Original location

The company started in San Francisco, California, and is now headquartered in South San Francisco, California.

Founding team members

The company was co-founded by three individuals who brought together deep expertise in synthetic biology and engineering:

• Emily Leproust, Ph.D. (Co-founder and CEO)
• Bill Banyai
• Bill Peck

Initial capital/funding

The early belief in their disruptive, silicon-based DNA synthesis technology translated into rapid investor confidence. The company secured its initial Series A funding of $5.1 million in early 2013, followed quickly by a Series B round of $26 million later that same year, totaling over $31 million in its first year alone. That's a strong signal of market validation right out of the gate.

Twist Bioscience Corporation's Evolution Milestones

The evolution of Twist Bioscience Corporation tracks its shift from a pure research-and-development entity to a commercial powerhouse, consistently scaling its manufacturing capacity to meet demand. The key is their proprietary silicon-based platform, which allows them to produce synthetic DNA at an unprecedented scale and lower cost than traditional methods.

Twist Bioscience Corporation's Transformative Moments

The most transformative decisions for Twist Bioscience Corporation have been about focus and scale, especially concerning their unique technology. They realized early on that their silicon-based DNA synthesis platform wasn't just a better way to make genes; it was a foundational technology that could disrupt multiple markets. You can see this in their financial health and growth trajectory; for a deeper dive, check out Breaking Down Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

Here are the moments that truly shaped the company's trajectory:

• Pioneering Silicon-Based Synthesis: The initial decision to build their platform on a proprietary semiconductor-based manufacturing process, synthesizing DNA on silicon instead of traditional plastic plates. This single move increased DNA production by a factor of 9,600 on a similar footprint, fundamentally changing the cost and scale equation for synthetic biology.
• Strategic Diversification into Biopharma and NGS: They didn't just stay in gene synthesis. By diversifying revenue streams into Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) tools and antibody discovery through their Biopharma Solutions division, they captured high-growth segments. For instance, NGS revenue grew 27% to $55.3 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025.
• The Atlas Data Storage Spin-off in 2025: This was a critical capital allocation decision. Management strategically reduced investment in DNA data storage by 50% (from $50 million to $25 million) to conserve capital, then spun it off to allow the core life sciences business to accelerate toward profitability. This move is expected to help the company achieve adjusted EBITDA breakeven by the end of fiscal 2026.
• Achieving Q3 FY2025 Net Income: A massive financial milestone, the company reported a net income of $20.4 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2025, a significant turnaround from a net loss of $85.6 million in the same period a year prior. This shows the operational leverage of their platform is finally starting to kick in.

Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST) Ownership Structure

Twist Bioscience Corporation is overwhelmingly controlled by institutional investors, a common trait for high-growth, publicly traded biotechnology companies, which means large fund managers drive most strategic decisions.

Twist Bioscience Corporation's Current Status

Twist Bioscience Corporation is a publicly traded company, listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (NasdaqGS) under the ticker symbol TWST. This status means its shares are freely bought and sold on the open market, and the company must comply with stringent reporting requirements from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

As of November 2025, the company's market capitalization stands at approximately $1.75 billion. This public structure ensures transparency but also subjects the company to the volatility of market sentiment, which is why understanding who holds the shares is critical. You can get a deeper look at the financials at Breaking Down Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

Twist Bioscience Corporation's Ownership Breakdown

The ownership structure is heavily skewed toward large financial institutions, which is typical for a company in the synthetic biology space. Here's the quick math on who holds the equity as of the 2025 fiscal year data.

Honestly, when institutions own over 80% of the float, their buying and selling patterns are the defintely primary driver of stock price movement, not retail volume.

Twist Bioscience Corporation's Leadership

The company is steered by a seasoned executive team, blending scientific expertise with operational and financial rigor. The leadership is responsible for converting the company's proprietary silicon-based DNA synthesis platform into commercial success and charting the path to profitability, which is a key focus following the 2025 fiscal year where revenue reached $376.6 million.

The core leadership team as of November 2025 includes:

• Emily Leproust, PhD: Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Co-Founder. She is the visionary behind the company's technology.
• Patrick Finn: President and Chief Operating Officer (COO). He oversees the day-to-day operations and execution of the corporate strategy.
• Adam Laponis: Chief Financial Officer (CFO). He manages the financial strategy and was instrumental in communicating the company's aim for Agility Beta Break-Even by Q4 2026.
• Siyuan Chen: Chief Technology Officer (CTO). He drives the technological roadmap for the DNA synthesis and biopharma solutions.
• Dennis Cho: Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary. He handles all legal, compliance, and governance matters.

This team's average tenure is relatively long for a biotech firm, which suggests stability in their strategic direction. Finance: monitor insider sales for any significant shifts in sentiment by the leadership team.

Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST) Mission and Values

Twist Bioscience Corporation is driven by a clear purpose: to revolutionize the world's approach to health and sustainability by industrializing the engineering of biology. This is not just about selling synthetic DNA; it's about enabling customers to tackle global challenges from drug discovery to data storage.

You're looking at a company whose cultural DNA is built on a disruptive silicon-based platform, and that vision is what guides their strategic investments, even as they reported a net loss of $(77.7) million for the fiscal year 2025. This is a long-term play, defintely.

Twist Bioscience Corporation's Core Purpose

The company's core purpose centers on scaling the production of high-quality synthetic DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) to a degree that was previously impossible, essentially making biology an engineering discipline. This allows their over 3,800 customers to accelerate their own breakthroughs.

Here's the quick math on their impact: their proprietary manufacturing process reduces the volume of chemical reagents and waste generated by a staggering 99.8% compared to traditional methods. That's a massive environmental win tied directly to their business model.

Official Mission Statement

The mission statement is direct and anchored in tangible global outcomes, linking their technology to broader societal good.

• To improve health and sustainability through synthetic DNA.

Vision Statement

The vision outlines the specific market position and technological disruption Twist Bioscience aims to achieve, which is key to understanding why their fiscal year 2025 revenue hit a strong $376.6 million.

• Provide a disruptive synthetic DNA manufacturing platform that revolutionizes how DNA is made.
• Enable customers to address significant global challenges across multiple industries.
• Become the leading provider of synthetic biology tools and solutions.

Twist Bioscience Corporation Slogan/Tagline

The company's overarching tagline captures their belief in the transformative power of their technology, positioning them as pioneers in a new era of biological engineering.

• Writing the Future through synthetic DNA.

The company's commitment extends into its operations, too. For instance, in fiscal year 2023, employees volunteered a total of 1,143 hours, showing their dedication to community alongside their technical goals. You can see how this focus on long-term impact aligns with their financial health and growth trajectory in Breaking Down Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST) How It Works

Twist Bioscience Corporation operates by fundamentally changing how DNA is manufactured, using a proprietary silicon-based platform to synthesize massive amounts of high-quality, custom DNA at an unprecedented scale and lower cost than traditional methods. This technology positions the company as a foundational supplier for the entire synthetic biology and genomics ecosystem, from drug discovery to agricultural innovation.

Honestly, their core value proposition is simple: they make the building blocks of life cheaper and faster to acquire, which accelerates their customers' research and commercial timelines.

Twist Bioscience Corporation's Product/Service Portfolio

The company's revenue streams flow from three primary segments, which collectively brought in a full-year fiscal 2025 revenue of $376.6 million, a 20% increase over the prior year. The Synthetic Biology and Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) segments are the largest contributors to this growth.

Twist Bioscience Corporation's Operational Framework

The entire operation is built on the silicon-based DNA Synthesis Platform, which replaces the traditional 96-well plate format with a high-density, semiconductor-based chip. This isn't just a minor improvement; it's a radical miniaturization and automation effort that fundamentally changes the cost structure of synthetic DNA production.

• Miniaturization via Silicon: DNA is synthesized on a proprietary silicon chip, allowing for the simultaneous creation of up to a million oligos (short DNA sequences) in a tiny area. This is how they achieve high-throughput.
• Automated, Precise Chemistry: The platform automates the complex chemical process of building DNA base-by-base, ensuring high quality and precision. This efficiency leads to a reported 99.8% reduction in chemical usage per gene compared to older, column-based synthesis methods.
• Rapid Scale-Up: The digital nature of the platform means scaling production is a matter of adding more silicon chips, not building entirely new, massive chemical plants. This allows for quick response to market demand, like the approximately 938,000 genes shipped in fiscal 2025.
• Value Creation: The cost and speed advantages are passed to customers, enabling them to run more experiments, screen more drug candidates, or develop new diagnostics faster. This is the core of their business model.

For more on the strategic direction, you should check out the Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST).

Twist Bioscience Corporation's Strategic Advantages

Their success in capturing market share, especially in the NGS and SynBio segments, comes down to a few clear, defensible advantages that stem directly from their core technology and market approach. They are defintely a technology-first company.

• Proprietary Technology Moat: The silicon-based DNA Synthesis Platform is protected by a strong intellectual property portfolio, making it difficult for competitors to replicate the same combination of high-throughput, precision, and low cost.
• Cost and Speed Leadership: By synthesizing DNA on silicon, they achieve a lower cost of goods sold and faster turnaround times for custom DNA orders than traditional synthesis methods, which is a critical factor for high-volume customers.
• Diverse and Expanding Customer Base: The company serves over 3,800 customers across diverse sectors-healthcare, agriculture, industrial chemicals, and academic research-reducing reliance on any single industry. The healthcare sector alone accounted for $215.1 million of revenue in 2025.
• Ecosystem Integration: Strategic collaborations, such as the expanded partnership with Element Biosciences for NGS workflows, ensure their products are seamlessly integrated into the latest high-growth sequencing platforms, locking in adoption.

Here's the quick math: a lower cost per base pair of DNA means their customers can afford to order more, which drives their volume and keeps their gross margin high, reaching 50.7% for the full fiscal year 2025.

Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST) How It Makes Money

Twist Bioscience Corporation generates revenue primarily by industrializing the manufacture of synthetic DNA, selling these genetic building blocks and related tools to researchers in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and academic sectors. The company's core business model is built on high-volume, low-cost production of synthetic DNA and Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) tools, turning a complex lab process into a scalable, semiconductor-like manufacturing operation.

Twist Bioscience Corporation's Revenue Breakdown

For the full fiscal year 2025, which ended September 30, 2025, Twist Bioscience reported total revenue of $376.6 million, representing a 20% increase year-over-year. The revenue is segmented across three main product lines, with the Next-Generation Sequencing tools being the largest contributor to sales and growth.

The $208.1 million in NGS revenue comes from selling tools that prepare DNA samples for sequencing, like target enrichment panels used in diagnostics and cancer monitoring. SynBio, at $145.0 million, represents the sale of custom-made synthetic genes and oligo pools. Biopharma Solutions, generating $23.5 million, is the service arm, using the platform to discover and optimize antibody candidates for drug development partners.

Business Economics

The company's economic engine is its proprietary silicon-based DNA synthesis platform, which fundamentally changes the cost structure of synthetic biology (SynBio). This technology allows for the parallel synthesis of over one million oligonucleotides (oligos) on a single chip, dramatically increasing throughput and lowering the cost per base pair (bp).

• Cost Leadership: The silicon platform reduces the cost of DNA synthesis to as low as $0.003 per bp for oligo pools, which is about 90% lower than traditional column-based synthesis methods.
• Pricing Strategy: Twist Bioscience employs a volume-driven pricing model, offering gene fragments starting at 7¢ (USD) per bp to capture market share from academic and industrial customers who need high volumes of DNA.
• Operating Leverage: The high fixed cost of the manufacturing facility (fab) is offset by the massive scale of production. As sales volume increases, the cost of goods sold (COGS) per unit falls, driving gross margin expansion. This is the definition of operating leverage.
• Value-Added Services: The NGS and Biopharma segments sell higher-margin, more complex products and services, leveraging the low-cost SynBio foundation. For example, the launch of the Oncology DNA Comprehensive Genomic Profiling (CGP) Panel supports high-demand clinical research.

This industrial approach is what allows them to maintain an industry-leading position in both price and scale, which is defintely a competitive edge. The spin-out of the DNA data storage application into Atlas Data Storage is a strategic move to focus capital and resources on the core, higher-margin SynBio and NGS businesses.

Twist Bioscience Corporation's Financial Performance

Twist Bioscience is a growth-stage company focused on market penetration and margin expansion, not yet on net income profitability, a common profile in high-growth biotech. The financial narrative for FY2025 is one of strong revenue growth coupled with significant efficiency gains.

• Gross Margin Improvement: The company achieved an annual gross margin of 50.7% in fiscal 2025, a substantial increase from 42.6% in fiscal 2024, demonstrating the positive impact of volume leverage and manufacturing efficiency.
• Path to Profitability: While the company is not yet profitable, the net loss for FY2025 narrowed significantly to $77.7 million, down from $208.7 million in the prior year. The Adjusted EBITDA loss also improved to $(46.9) million for the year.
• Cash and Liquidity: As of September 30, 2025, the company maintained a strong cash position with $232.4 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments, providing a buffer for continued investment in R&D and scaling operations.
• Operating Expenses: Selling, General, and Administrative (SG&A) expenses increased to $247.0 million as the company scales its commercial team to support its growing customer base, while Research and Development (R&D) expenses decreased to $80.3 million, reflecting a focus on commercialization.

The management has guided that they expect to reach adjusted EBITDA breakeven by the end of fiscal year 2026, which is a critical milestone for a high-growth company like this. You can read more about the company's long-term strategy here: Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST).

Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST) Market Position & Future Outlook

Twist Bioscience Corporation is strategically positioned as a high-growth leader in the synthetic DNA market, leveraging its proprietary silicon-based platform to industrialize biology. The company closed its fiscal year 2025 with strong momentum, reporting total revenue of $376.6 million, a 20% increase over the prior year, even while navigating the typical financial challenges of a scaling biotech firm, including a net loss of $(77.7) million for the year.

Competitive Landscape

The core synthetic DNA and gene synthesis market, valued at approximately $1.0893 billion in 2025, is highly competitive, pitting Twist Bioscience Corporation's automated scale against competitors' speed and clinical specialization.

Opportunities & Challenges

The company's strategic focus is on translating its core technology advantage-scale and cost-into high-margin, high-growth applications like diagnostics and drug discovery, but this requires sustained investment in a capital-intensive environment.

Industry Position

Twist Bioscience Corporation maintains a strong, differentiated position in the synthetic biology ecosystem, primarily as a foundational technology provider, not a direct drug developer.

• The company's silicon-based DNA synthesis platform allows for the simultaneous production of 1.3 million oligonucleotides on a single chip, giving it a clear advantage in scale and cost efficiency.
• Fiscal 2025 saw the gross margin improve significantly to 50.7%, up from 42.6% in FY2024, demonstrating operational leverage as volume scales.
• The company serves a diverse base of over 3,800 customers across healthcare, chemicals, and agriculture, with the healthcare sector alone accounting for $215.1 million in 2025 revenue.
• Management is targeting adjusted EBITDA breakeven by the end of fiscal year 2026, a critical milestone for a company with a market capitalization of approximately $1.8 billion.

You can get a deeper understanding of the institutional money driving this growth by Exploring Twist Bioscience Corporation (TWST) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

• The NGS (Next-Generation Sequencing) Applications segment is the largest revenue driver, generating $208.1 million in fiscal 2025, but a transition of a large diagnostics customer will cause revenue lumpiness in the near term.