cell-engineering
(4)
Portal Biotechnologies
Portal Biotechnologies is a Watertown, Massachusetts cell-engineering platform company building tools that push complex cargo - mRNA, siRNA, CRISPR complexes, proteins - into living cells by squeezing them through microscopic holes in a silicon surface, rather than relying on viruses or chemistry. Founded in 2023 by Armon Sharei, the MIT-trained scientist behind SQZ Biotechnologies, Portal sells hardware and consumables to drug discovery and cell therapy labs instead of developing its own drugs. Its instruments are used across more than 100 customer sites, including many of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, and the company has raised seed and follow-on funding plus a DARPA contract for portable, point-of-care cell manufacturing.
CellFE
CellFE is an Alameda, California biotechnology company building microfluidics-based, non-viral cell-engineering instruments and consumables. Its Ryva mechanoporation platform squeezes cells through microfluidic channels to transiently open their membranes and deliver gene-editing payloads (mRNA, CRISPR-RNP, DNA vectors) in under 10 milliseconds, aiming to preserve cell health and viability where viral vectors and electroporation fall short. The goal is to make lifesaving cell therapies such as CAR-T faster, cheaper, and more scalable to manufacture.
Multispan, Inc.
Multispan, Inc. is a Hayward, California biotech that builds the cell lines and assays drug hunters use to interrogate G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), the largest druggable target family in the human genome. Founded in 2004 by Helena Mancebo, the company has assembled one of the industry's largest libraries of clonally derived, GPCR-expressing stable cell lines - 600+ lines and 2,000+ ready-to-use reagents - and pairs them with custom assay development, compound profiling, antibody work, and CRISPR cell engineering. Its MULTISCREEN platform and proprietary HEx high-expression cell technology let pharmaceutical and academic teams screen, profile, and validate candidate drugs against receptors that are notoriously hard to express and measure.
Kytopen
Kytopen is a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech and MIT spinout building Flowfect, a non-viral, continuous-flow platform that uses fluid flow plus electric fields to deliver mRNA, DNA and CRISPR payloads into cells. The technology aims to engineer hundreds of billions of cells in minutes, removing a major bottleneck in discovering, developing and manufacturing advanced cell therapies like CAR-T and NK-cell treatments.