From Brewing Sake to Brewing Science: Takara Bio’s Bold New Chapter with CSO Andrew Farmer

What company began as a sake manufacturer over a century ago and went on to launch the world’s first single-cell kit in 2011? It’s Takara Bio—and their story is far from finished.

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Andrew Farmer, Chief Scientific Officer and Head of R&D at Takara Bio USA, about the company’s remarkable evolution from a Japanese enzyme maker to a global innovator in single-cell and spatial biology. Farmer recalls, “We go way, way back to being a sake manufacturer a hundred years ago. And it’s through that business—realizing that sake is basically fermentation—that we could use that to do other interesting things in biology.”

* 0:00 Began as a sake manufacturer over 100 years ago

* 5:25 First kit for single-cell sequencing

* 11:10 Bought Curio Bioscience to bring in spatial omics

* 15:00 Returning to the level of the cell

* 26:40 The new “T-cell sponge”

He describes how Takara Bio introduced the first commercial single-cell reagent kit long before the current explosion of single-cell technologies: “The first single-cell reagent kit on the market was actually from us. That was in 2011, and even the Fluidigm C1 system was driven by our chemistry.”

The conversation then moves through Takara’s acquisition of Curio Bioscience, adding the Trekker and Seeker spatial platforms, which—remarkably—require no specialized instruments. Farmer explains how this simplicity could democratize access to spatial data and accelerate multiomic studies in cancer and drug discovery.

And for an ending twist, he introduces the “T-cell Sponge,” a porous hydrogel matrix that activates and transduces T cells in a single step—an innovation recently named one of The Scientist’s Top Innovations of 2025.