Portable Cell Therapy Device to Enable Rapid On-Demand Modification of RBCs at POC

Portal Biotechnologies (Watertown, MA, USA) has secured a USD 8 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Biotechnology Office (BTO) under its Red Blood Cell (RBC) Factory Program. The goal of the program is to create a compact, portable system that can quickly load various therapeutic agents into RBCs directly at the point of care. This advancement would enable field-ready, customizable, and scalable cellular therapies. It addresses key challenges of current ex vivo cell modification methods, which are often slow, require substantial resources, and must be conducted in specialized cleanroom environments.

The DARPA initiative builds on Portal’s proprietary mechanoporation platform, which works by guiding patient cells through ultra-thin silicon membranes to facilitate the introduction of nearly any type of material into any cell type—an essential step in the creation of cell-based therapies. Since its inception in early 2023, Portal has introduced three product lines, including the award-winning Galaxy instrument and the clinical-scale MilliBooster cartridge. The company has also formed over 50 paid collaborations, including with most of the top 10 global pharmaceutical firms. A central aspect of the RBC Factory Program is applying Portal’s proven expertise in rapidly developing mechanoporation tools and consumables across different scales to the modification of red blood cells, a cell type traditionally considered difficult to engineer.

“Our goal is to streamline all the present complexities associated with cell therapies to a simple portable device deployable with minimal healthcare infrastructure,” said Armon Sharei, PhD, CEO of Portal Biotechnologies. “Similar to how the transition from mainframe computers to smartphones revolutionized access to information technology, the evolution from resource intensive centralized production to a portable cell therapy device could enable massive patient impact. We are grateful to the team at DARPA for the opportunity to drive that change.”

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