# Simple and Effective Method for Cell Separation During Preclinical Research and Cell Therapy Manufacturing

> **NIH NIH R44** · PROTEIOS TECHNOLOGY, INC. · 2022 · $816,395

## Abstract

Project Summary
Proteios is an emerging startup driven to reduce the rising cost of healthcare. Prescription drug costs are the
fastest rising component and are contributing to the dramatic increase in healthcare costs. The worldwide focus
of pharmacy and biotechnology is now in two areas: 1) biopharmaceutical development and production and 2)
cell therapies. Cell therapies have demonstrated enormous promise for transforming the treatment of cancer
and other debilitating diseases, and the FDA has already approved their use for the treatment of leukemia and
lymphoma. However, some cell therapies can cost as much as $350,000 per treatment, which has made these
life-saving technologies inaccessible to many patients. The objective of this proposal is to provide Preclinical
Researchers with a simple and cost-effective cell separation tool to isolate and study cell subpopulations for their
potential use as new cell therapeutics. Proteios’ cell separation technology will also be employed during cell
therapy manufacturing; Proteios will develop cell separation cartridges for use with its cGMP cell therapy
manufacturing instrument currently under development.
Our goal for Phase II of the SBIR award is to develop new Proteios Chimeras for the 15 most commonly studied
cell subpopulations used for autologous and allogeneic cell therapies. Chimeras form a critical component of
the Proteios Chimera Platform that will empower our Preclinical Research R&D cell separations kits and cell
separation cartridges for Manufacturing. The platform provides a tag-free, antibody-free isolation platform based
on proprietary protein technology and nucleic acid aptamers by immunoaffinity capture of cells that express
Cluster of Differentiation (CD) marker proteins. Our approach avoids challenging and costly steps where
antibodies or other proteins are covalently modified to bind to beads or small molecules. Additionally, our
approach eliminates commonly used reagents that cause oxidative damage to cells.
When commercialized, this approach will alleviate some of the concerns with current technologies - such as high
cost, long development times, lack of automation and clinical-grade reagents, and complicated, multistep
chemistry. The development of products for cell isolation using the Proteios Chimera Platform has the potential
to reduce the cost of cell separations by more than tenfold. Furthermore, this technology could transform the
production process for therapeutic cells to make life-saving cell therapies available to more individuals.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10549233
- **Project number:** 2R44GM134729-02
- **Recipient organization:** PROTEIOS TECHNOLOGY, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Bob Snyder
- **Activity code:** R44 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $816,395
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2019-09-01 → 2024-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10549233

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10549233, Simple and Effective Method for Cell Separation During Preclinical Research and Cell Therapy Manufacturing (2R44GM134729-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10549233. Licensed CC0.

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