For cell and gene therapies to be frontline treatments for cancer, injury and degenerative diseases, they need improved automated technologies to accelerate clinical manufacturing and reduce cost, innovative solutions for quality and safety control, and high-throughput discovery tools to create the next generation of these platforms.   

Draper designs and develops hardware, software, and disposable systems to address the changing needs of cell therapy manufacture. Our technologies are modular and designed for integration into standard processes, or they can be customized to meet specific client needs. Our solutions allow the user to have control over and flexibility in their manufacturing process, from early discovery to the clinic. Partner with Draper to reimagine and optimize your bioprocessing, and together we can advance patient access to life-saving therapies.

Expanding Innovation Beyond Cancer Therapeutics

Draper’s bioprocessing engineers created best-in-class hardware for performing key unit bioprocessing operations required for the manufacture of cancer immunotherapies. The hardware is adaptable for researching and manufacturing  therapeutics for other diseases areas, including

• Sickle cell anemia and other monogenic diseases
• Autoimmune diseases
• Infectious diseases
• Neurological degenerative diseases (Parkinson’s disease)
• Solid tumors
• Exosome-based therapies

State-of-the-Art Capabilities and Rapid Prototyping

We partner with clients to define and design solutions for any media or cell type, drawing on our substantial cross-industry experience. Our capabilities in clinical bioprocessing include

• Cell or exosome separation
• Rapid gene delivery (via viral vector or electroporation)
• Mixing and fluidic handling
• Expansion systems or bioreactors

Our solutions automate and streamline bioprocessing unit operations for cell therapy manufacturing, reducing the time needed for the process, while simultaneously generating a higher-quality product.

Draper’s hardware design methodology employs rapid prototyping and model-based engineering capabilities combined with real-time inputs from in-house cell biologists, which substantially shortens the design cycle and helps to ensure that final designs will meet customer needs.

Current Technology: Four Distinct Modular Systems

Our modular technology can be customized for multiple cell types, donor variations, reagent requirements and payloads. We can improve your process to achieve target throughput at virtually any scale. Draper’s systems can improve processes that use the gold standard of viral transduction for gene delivery in production of autologous therapies, as well as enable next-generation processing of allogenic therapies using electroporation.

Acoustic Cell Separation

Developed with pharma partners as well as sponsorship from FDA, NIH, DARPA and others, our acoustic cell separation technology permits label-free or labelled isolation of immune cells for downstream processing without the need for magnetic beads or antibodies.

Proven to provide high cell recovery and purity for lymphocyte bioprocessing, our acoustic separation device can be paired with affinity solutions to isolate CD3, CD4/8, and other T-cell classes, as well as to remove dead or dying material and cell preservation solution.

Draper’s acoustic separation technology can be adapted to support final formulation.

Rapid Transduction

Draper engineered a microfluidic device that improves the co-localization and binding of target cells and viral vectors. Designed to fit into standard manufacturing processes, our device delivers higher rates of viral transduction using less vector in a fraction of the time when compared to standard methods using static culture. We have demonstrated improved T-cell transduction using a variety of viral vectors while maintaining high viability and recovery, without the need for expensive additives such as retronectin.

Continuous Electroporation

Through sponsorship with pharma partners, Draper engineered a continuous-flow electroporation module that uses high-precision microfluidics to tightly control cell exposure to electrical current, increase throughput, reduce manual touch labor and allow for in-line wash steps.

Our transfection device can process 10 billion cells in minutes using a single microfluidic channel—eliminating hours of processing time and labor while maintaining high viability.

This high-efficiency transfection technology can be customized for multiple cell types, donor variations and payloads. We can parallelize the process to achieve target throughput at virtually any scale.

Microfluidic Buffer Exchange

We developed a scalable system for continuous isolation, washing or concentration of cells (2-3x concentration). This system can be paired or integrated into the electroporation system.