"This Company Is Bringing Species Back" — Moonshots

Episode summary

67-second clip from the Ben Lamm / Colossal Biosciences segment ([[2026-04-07-moonshots-ep-synbio-ben-lamm-colossal]] is the parent ep). Lamm describes Colossal's acquisition of Viagen — the cloning company behind ~15 of the only 18 species ever cloned, with 78% efficiency vs the industry's typical 2%. Black-footed ferret named as the lead endangered-species clone. Tom Brady's dog cited for color.

Key arguments / segments

[00:00:00] Colossal acquired the world's top two cloning companies, including Viagen
[00:00:20] Only ~18 species have ever been cloned; Viagen accounts for ~15 of them
[00:00:40] Cloning efficiency: industry ~2%, Viagen ~78% consistently
[00:01:00] All endangered-species clones to date came from Viagen (e.g. black-footed ferret)
[00:01:00] Plans to scale into in-country productionization with artificial wombs (sets up sibling clip)

Notable claims

78% cloning efficiency at Viagen vs ~2% industry baseline — a 30-40x productivity delta
"Only 18 species ever cloned" as the macro-bottleneck for de-extinction
Tom Brady's dog cloned by Viagen (Colossal subsidiary) — minor but worth noting if we ever write on celebrity-cloning normalization

Guests

Ben Lamm — CEO/co-founder, Colossal Biosciences (de-extinction)

Mapping against Ray Data Co

Medium — extends the existing synbio coverage at [[2026-04-07-moonshots-ep-synbio-ben-lamm-colossal]]. The 78% vs 2% efficiency delta is the kind of crisp data point Ray could use in a Sanity Check piece on "what 'productionization' actually means in life sciences" — pair with the artificial wombs sibling clip below.

[[2026-04-07-moonshots-ep-synbio-ben-lamm-colossal]] — parent episode
[[2026-04-19-moonshots-artificial-wombs-species-development]] — sibling clip