Page 76 - Innovation Delaware 2021

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
NIIMBL: Mounting a Comprehensive Pandemic Response
The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) has used funding
from the federal CARES Act to support the nation’s fight against COVID-19 with several major research
initiatives.
NIIMBL is a federally supported partnership whose mission
is to accelerate innovation in the biopharma space. NIIMBL is headquartered at the University of Delaware’s STAR Campus, in the state-of-the-art Carol Ammon and Marie Pinizzotto Biopharmaceutical Innovation Center building. The building first opened in February 2020 and now houses life science labs, conference rooms and offices to support a wide range of biotechnology-based research.
In June 2020, NIIMBL announced it had been awarded $8.9 million in CARES Act funding that would be used for research to support the nation’s response to the pandemic.
“The NIIMBL community had already established some processes to solicit proposals as part of our regular activities,” says KELVIN LEE, NIIMBL’s institute director. “When the opportunity came up for CARES Act funding, we activated
that process. A key difference was that we had to move much more quickly, given that we were responding to a national public health emergency. We expanded our scope and asked the community to feel free to propose any work that would rely on their experience and capabilities, and not to limit their efforts to biopharmaceutical manufacturing. We received many great ideas and had to prioritize the ones that we felt would deliver the most immediate impact on our country.”
Ultimately, NIIMBL-funded projects focused on improving testing capabilities, identifying domestic supply chains
to reduce foreign dependence for respirators and masks,
KELVIN LEE
validating the use of environmental decontamination approaches for clinical spaces, and accelerating
the development of manufacturing platforms for COVID vaccines and therapies.
Some of this work has already shown results. “In one project, we worked with a local hospital system to develop an alternate route
to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for COVID-19 diagnosis,” Lee says. “As many will recall, those early days [of the pandemic] were characterized by limited testing ability and long turnaround times — up to a week or longer. Many of those problems were a result of limited supply chains for testing kits, as well as limited numbers of laboratories where the testing could be performed. Through collaboration, we were able to develop an alternate route to PCR testing for COVID-19 that used different supply chains and automated PCR systems that allowed testing to be done locally and rapidly.”
In another project, a team of researchers developed a new filtering medium that could be used for surgical masks and N95 respirators. “The new material was tested to ensure high filtration capacity and ultra-low breathing resistance,” Lee says. “That team has produced over 10 million meters of the filter since March 2020, which has been used to make over 100 million masks, also resulting in three patent applications and two startup companies.”
In addition to the immediate COVID response, NIIMBL is also working to help ensure readiness for future pandemics. “One of the challenges in pandemic response is the ability
to manufacture biopharmaceuticals (e.g. monoclonal antibodies and vaccines) at scale as rapidly as possible,” says Lee. “We are working on technologies and approaches to create more speed and flexibility in biopharmaceutical manufacturing processes. To get there, we
are developing industry-wide testbeds for advanced continuous manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals.” (A testbed is a platform that can be used to perform replicable testing of scientific theories and new technologies.)
“Once established,” Lee says, “these approaches will enable companies to better utilize their manufacturing facilities and more rapidly perform changeovers to different products, all while lowering the cost to manufacture these medicines.” —Tina Irgang Leaderman
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