The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) has announced approximately $10 million in planned project activities through the Institute’s Project Call 7.1 for eight new technology and workforce development projects that will help address key opportunities for innovation in biopharmaceutical manufacturing.
 
“We are excited to expand our diverse project portfolio with these innovative new projects,” said Chris Roberts, Associate Institute Director. “These collaborative projects will bring significant value to the biopharmaceutical industry in the key areas of intensified processing for monoclonal antibodies, viral vectors, and cell therapy, along with measurements of critical quality attributes.”
 
Since the Institute’s launch in 2017, NIIMBL has awarded 123 member-led technical, workforce development, and Global Health Fund projects with an approximate value of $111 million. Last year, NIIMBL announced approximately $1.7 million in planned project activities for three projects focused on the development of in vitro potency assays for vaccines being produced by mRNA and/or viral vector technologies.
 
NIIMBL is composed of nearly 200 member organizations from academia, industry, government, and non-profit organization with a common goal to advance biopharmaceutical manufacturing.
 
See the project list below:
 
1. Process Intensification for rAAV Manufacturing Using HIP-Vax and Continuous Countercurrent Tangential Chromatography Technology
Lead: Batavia Biosciences Inc.
Participant(s): ChromaTan Corporation
 
2. Antibody Mix-and-Read Assays Based on Fluorescence Intensity Probes
Lead: University of Houston
Participant(s): Agilent, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech
 
3. Development of Small Molecule Formulations for Enhanced Production of CAR-T Cell Therapies
Lead: Virica Biotech Inc.
Participant(s): AstraZeneca, Sartorius Stedim
 
4. Commercial Deployment of Integrated PAT Technologies to Enable Continuous Upstream Production of Glycosylated Monoclonal Antibodies
Lead: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Participant(s): Agilent, Endress + Hauser Optical Analysis, EnZene Biosciences Ltd, MilliporeSigma/EMD Serono, Pfizer, Inc.
 
5. Surrogate ADCs for Process Development and Quality Assessment
Lead: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Participant(s): Carnegie Mellon University, Pfizer, Inc.
 
6. Isoelectric Point Purification (IPP) Technology Enables Truly Continuous, End-to-End Chromatography-free Manufacturing to Yield Ultra-high Purity mAbs
Lead: Enquyst Technologies Inc.
Participant(s): Lonza Biologics, Inc., MilliporeSigma/EMD Serono, University of Massachusetts Lowell
 
7. Creating a Neurodiverse Talent Pipeline for the Biomanufacturing Industry
Lead: Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
Participant(s): Janssen Research & Development, LLC, Pfizer, Inc., University of California, Los Angeles
 
8. BioCAD Data Programming for Biomanufacturing Scale-Up
Lead: Santa Clara University
Participant(s): Biocom California, Genentech, Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC