ARPA-H announces project to scale methods for making more affordable personalized cell therapies 

Major biomanufacturing investment aims to improve cell therapy development to treat a range of diseases 

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), today announced the funding of the NExt-generation Biomanufacturing ULtra-scalable Approach (NEBULA) project. NEBULA seeks to develop a more affordable and accessible method to manufacture personalized cell therapies using an individual’s own cells for the treatment of chronic or degenerative diseases, such as heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, or diabetes.  

Cellino Biotech, a woman-founded company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will lead the project with up to $25 million in research funding from ARPA-H over five years. While current methods to manufacture cell therapies are time- and cost-intensive, Cellino’s modular biomanufacturing approach using a patient’s stem cells will yield more of the desired cell types while reducing the manufacturing footprint and number of expert personnel required, thus creating more affordable therapies overall. The autonomous process represents ARPA-H’s first investment in boosting domestic production capability and capacity of cellular therapies. 

“Advancements in biomanufacturing, artificial intelligence, and supply chain logistics are all critical pieces to provide cutting-edge therapeutics to people across the country,” said Jason Roos, Ph.D., ARPA-H Scalable Solutions Mission Office Director. “Enhancing affordability and broader access to essential medications is as challenging as developing those novel therapies. ARPA-H is committed to ensuring we can scale manufacturing right alongside other regenerative health innovations.”  

NEBULA aims to enable more health care facilities, like hospitals, to generate cell-based therapies on demand, reducing dependence on specialized manufacturing facilities. Improvements in manufacturing could translate to faster drug development and more affordable and accessible new treatments for millions of Americans with chronic and disabling diseases.  

Cellino was a semi-finalist in last year’s ARPA-H Dash challenge, and this award is one of multiple projects solicited through the agency’s Open Broad Agency Announcement (Open-BAA). ARPA-H continues to seek transformative ideas for health research or technology innovation through the Mission Office Innovative Solution Openings. Continued support of each award is contingent on projects meeting aggressive milestones, typical of the ARPA-H process.  

To learn more about projects as they are awarded, visit the project awardee page.