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NIIMBL Announces 11 New Technology, Workforce, and Global Health Fund Projects

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NEWARK, Del., April 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) is pleased to announce 11 new member-led technology, workforce development, and Global Health Fund projects with a value of ~$11.2 million through the Institute’s Project Call 8.1. This new slate of collaborative projects addresses key industry challenges and aims to strengthen domestic biopharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities.

Six projects focus on priority technology areas identified by NIIMBL industry members, including manufacturing platforms for biopharmaceutical products, process analytical technologies, and data science and modeling.

“NIIMBL members are well-positioned to advance current state-of-the-art processes and analytical technologies,” said Sandeep Kedia, NIIMBL Senior Technology Fellow. “We are excited about the potential these projects have to advance our ability to manufacture biologic products and push the boundaries of what is possible in biomanufacturing.”

The slate of new projects also includes three workforce projects aimed at building awareness and talent pipeline development, ensuring the U.S. has the strongest biopharmaceutical workforce globally.

“To meet the industry’s future talent needs, we need to find innovative ways to reach new talent and offer them pathways to begin their careers in the industry,” said John Balchunas, NIIMBL Workforce Director. “The new projects will provide new tools to help us do that.”

The NIIMBL Global Health Fund (GHF) was established with funding contributed by the Gates Foundation to develop and implement innovative technologies to manufacture preventative medical countermeasures and biologics. Two projects funded as part of Project Call 8.1 focus on reducing the cost of goods to manufacture mRNA-based preventative medical countermeasures.

“With mRNA technologies opening the doors for new therapeutics, we are excited by the opportunities these projects provide to lower costs,” said Chris Roberts, NIIMBL Associate Institute Director.

The approximate value of these 11 projects includes NIIMBL funding plus cost share from participating organizations.

Since NIIMBL’s launch in 2017, the Institute has awarded 160 projects with a total investment of more than $134 million. NIIMBL is composed of 200+ member organizations from academia, industry, government, and non-profit organizations with a common goal to advance biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Funding for Project Call 8.1 projects is subject to project award negotiations.

For a description of each project and to learn more about NIIMBL, please visit the Project Call 8.1 page.

Project Call 8.1 List

Technology Projects

Project: Automation and Control of a Precipitation-based Continuous Downstream Process for High Titer Products
Lead: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Participants: Astra Zeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, ChromaTan, Dyadic, Janssen, Merck & Co., Inc., MilliporeSigma, PAK Bio, PendoTECH, Sanofi

Project: Rapid Bioburden and Sterility Testing for Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing
Lead: Mango, Inc.
Participant: Janssen

Project: Single Particle Analyzer for High-throughput and High-content Characterization of Nanoparticle-based RNA Therapy
Lead: Johns Hopkins University
Participants: CICS Analytics, Sartorius Stedim, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Project: Integrating High-Throughput Chromatography and Data Science in a Platform for the Rapid and Accurate Quantification of Full, Partial, and Empty AAV Capsids
Lead: North Carolina State University
Participants: Bio Rad Laboratories, Bristol Myers Squibb, Cornell University, LigaTrap Technologies LLC, MilliporeSigma, Refeyn, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Sartorius Stedim, University of Florida

Project: Obtaining Extensive At-line Input and Output Analytics Combined with Machine Learning to Improve Predictive CQA
Lead: Carnegie Mellon University
Participants: Johns Hopkins University, Merck & Co., Inc., Pfizer, Inc., University of Maryland Baltimore

Project: Spectro-acoustic Process Analytical Technology for Real-time Monitoring of Biopharmaceuticals
Lead: Purdue University
Participants: Merck & Co., Inc.

Workforce Projects

Project: Creation of National Standards for a Biomanufacturing Technician Registered Apprenticeship Program
Lead: Apprenti
Participants: InnovATEBIO, LifeScience Workforce Collaborative (LSWC)

Project: Life Sciences Career Hub: Biomanufacturing in Central Massachusetts
Lead: MassBio Education Foundation
Participants: Masschusetts Biomedical Initiative (MBI)

Project: A Day in the Life: Highlighting Careers in Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing
Lead: Bioscience Core Skills Institute (BCSI)
Participants: BioSTL, Merck & Co., Inc., Pfizer, Inc., Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES)

Global Health Fund Projects

Project: Lowering the Cost of Goods for Making mRNA Utilizing Continuous Manufacturing
Lead: Sepragen
Participants: University of Massachusetts Lowell, University of Pennsylvania

Project: Lowering mRNA LNP Cost of Goods by Adding a Dose-sparing and Stabilizing Adjuvant
Lead: VaxForm

About NIIMBL

The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL) is a public-private partnership whose mission is to accelerate biopharmaceutical innovation, support the development of standards that enable more efficient and rapid manufacturing capabilities, and educate and train a world-leading biopharmaceutical manufacturing workforce, fundamentally advancing U.S. competitiveness and security. NIIMBL is part of Manufacturing USA®, a network of federally sponsored manufacturing innovation institutes, and is funded through a cooperative agreement with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the U.S. Department of Commerce with significant additional support from its members.

Contact
News Media
Daniel Maiese
Communications Manager
302-831-3824
dmaiese@udel.edu

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SOURCE National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL)

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CCBank Launches Quill Bank to Deliver Banking Expertise to Fintechs

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Quill Bank delivers decades of banking expertise directly to fintechs seeking a credible, consistent, and experienced bank.

PLEASANT GROVE, Utah, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — CCBank is excited to announce the launch of Quill Bank, a distinctive, modern brand designed to serve the fintech banking vertical and bring innovative financial products to market with efficiency and broad appeal. Quill Bank is created specifically to meet the needs of tech-forward financial companies seeking a trusted brand backed by the bank’s regulatory, operational, and relationship-banking expertise.

Quill Bank is designed around the proposition that technology with a human touch ensures the best products and services are delivered to consumers in a safe and compliant manner. The name Quill, a reference to an antique writing instrument, reflects our intention to emphasize thoughtful, relationship-driven banking within a high-tech digital fintech space. The brand’s positioning, “Your fintech, our banking backbone,” also shows our commitment to providing fintech companies with a seasoned, dependable partner standing with them.

“The fintech space is driven by innovation, but innovation without a solid banking backbone can be a liability. Quill Bank exists because the fintechs we work with deserve a brand that reflects the institution standing behind them, one with tested experience, real relationships, and know-how. We’re delivering Quill to be the type of bank that makes fintech programs not just possible but credible,” said Andrew Cusick, CCBank’s Chief Development Officer.

“We’ve always believed that banking done right is built on relationships and reputation. Quill Bank is our way of bringing that philosophy to the fintech sector,” added Mike Watson, CCBank’s Chief Executive Officer. “As we grow and evolve, Quill gives our fintech programs a dedicated identity that speaks their language while drawing on everything we’ve built over the last few decades. We’re thrilled about the future the Quill brand makes possible for us.”

Quill Bank’s launch is effective on June 30, 2026, when the Quill.Bank website will go live. Fintechs interested in learning more about Quill Bank can contact Andrew Cusick at (801) 705-4383 or andrew.cusick@ccbank.com

About CCBank –

Founded in 1993, CCBank is a community-focused financial institution with branch offices located in Salem, Provo, Orem, Pleasant Grove, Sandy, Spanish Fork, and St. George to serve the banking needs of Utah residents and businesses. The bank prides itself on being a longstanding community bank headquartered in Pleasant Grove and focused on Utah communities’ financial and social health through its industry-leading rates, personalized service, financial technology, and quick decisions made at the local level. CCBank is an Equal Housing Lender | Member FDIC. Online: https://ccbank.com.

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SOURCE Capital Community Bank

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Spenn, Norwegian Reward and Strawberry Successfully Go Live on GRAVTY® to Power the Nordics’ Next-Generation Loyalty Ecosystem

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The launch establishes a new benchmark for loyalty ecosystems in the Nordics, connecting millions of members across leading travel, hospitality, and retail brands.

LONDON, June 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Loyalty Juggernaut, creator of GRAVTY®, the world’s leading cloud-native, enterprise growth platform, today announced at the Loyalty Summit EMEA the successful go-live of Spenn, Norwegian Reward, and Strawberry on GRAVTY®, enabling one of the most ambitious loyalty ecosystem initiatives in the Nordics. The milestone underscores GRAVTY®’s position as a leading loyalty platform in Europe’s hospitality, travel, and retail sectors.

Spenn was launched with the ambition of creating a shared loyalty points system designed to make earning and using rewards simpler, more flexible, and more relevant across brands, beginning with Norwegian and Strawberry, and expanding to additional ecosystem partners over time. Together, the programs serve millions of members across the Nordic region and reflect a broader industry shift toward interconnected loyalty ecosystems that create value for both consumers and participating brands.

Built on GRAVTY®, the platform enables real-time loyalty transactions, ecosystem-wide engagement, partner-led innovation, personalized experiences, and scalable growth across multiple brands and industries. The implementation provides the technological foundation required to support the continued expansion of the Spenn ecosystem and its growing network of partners.

“Spenn was created to challenge traditional loyalty models and give customers greater flexibility, simplicity, and value across the brands they engage with every day,” said Christoffer Sundby, CEO of Spenn. “Launching on GRAVTY® gives us a highly scalable technology foundation that enables us to accelerate innovation, expand our ecosystem, and create richer experiences for participating brands’ customers.”

“Our vision has always been to make our loyalty programme as relevant and valuable as possible for our Norwegian Reward members. By modernising our technology platform, we are taking an important step towards providing an even better and more flexible offering. This strengthens the connection between travel and everyday rewards, and gives us the flexibility needed to continue developing the experience with new benefits for the years to come,” said Cecilie Nybø Carlsen, Vice President Products & Customer Experience, Norwegian. 

“Strawberry has consistently focused on creating exceptional guest experiences and building deeper relationships with our members,” said Håvard Hovdahl, VP Spenn & Partnerships, Strawberry. “With GRAVTY® powering our loyalty operations, we are well positioned to expand the possibilities of Spenn and deliver greater value, flexibility, and personalization to our guests across the Nordic region.”

“The launch of Spenn required a platform capable of supporting complex ecosystem dynamics, high transaction volumes, real-time interoperability, and rapid partner onboarding,” said Kristian Kolstad, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Spenn. “GRAVTY® provided the architectural flexibility, scalability, and modern capabilities necessary to bring our vision to life and support our future growth ambitions.”

“We are honored to partner with Spenn, Norwegian Reward, and Strawberry on one of the most innovative loyalty transformations in the industry today,” said Shyam Shah, CEO of Loyalty Juggernaut. “The future of loyalty lies in ecosystems, interoperability, intelligent engagement, and customer-centric value creation. The successful launch of these programs on GRAVTY® demonstrates the power of modern loyalty technology to enable entirely new business models and customer experiences.”

About Loyalty Juggernaut

Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with subsidiaries in India, the UAE, China, and Canada, Loyalty Juggernaut serves leading brands across 110 countries. Its flagship platform, GRAVTY®, is an award-winning, AI-enabled, patented enterprise growth platform that powers over 80 loyalty programs across airlines, hospitality, retail, financial services, telecommunications, multi-brand business conglomerates, and other industries. Rated a Strong Performer in the Forrester Wave™ for Loyalty Technology Solutions, Q4 2025, GRAVTY® enables organizations to build, manage, scale, and monetize modern loyalty ecosystems while delivering highly personalized customer experiences.

About Spenn Group

Spenn Group is a technology company building and operating a loyalty platform with flexible points, jointly owned by Norwegian Air Shuttle, Strawberry Hotel Group and Reitan Retail. Spenn Group provides shared, flexible points that flow freely across a range of leading consumer brands, including Norwegian, Strawberry Hotels, Uno-X, 7-Eleven, Narvesen, and REMA 1000, enabling cross-brand earn and redemption while preserving each brand’s individual loyalty program. Spenn Group’s founding partners collectively represent over $20 billion in Nordic turnover.

About Norwegian Reward

Norwegian Reward is the loyalty program of Norwegian, a leading Nordic aviation company. The group includes two prominent airlines in the Nordics: Norwegian Air Shuttle (Norwegian) and Widerøe’s Flyveselskap (Widerøe). Members of Norwegian Reward earn benefits when flying with either Norwegian or Widerøe, and also from a growing ecosystem of lifestyle and travel partners. The Norwegian Group operates an extensive network of domestic routes across the Nordic countries, in addition to connecting the region with key destinations all over Europe.

About Strawberry

Strawberry is one of the largest hotel groups in the Nordic countries, operating more than 250 hotels across the Nordics under brands including Clarion, Quality, Comfort, Stopover and Home Hotels, in addition to a portfolio of independent brands. Strawberry’s loyalty program rewards members for stays, dining, and experiences across its portfolio, with a vision to build lasting relationships that extend far beyond the hotel stay.

Media Contact:

media@lji.io

www.lji.io

#FFP #TravelLoyalty #LoyaltyEcosystems #CustomerLoyalty #Spenn #LoyaltyJuggernaut #GRAVTY

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BlockBooster Digital Venture Fund I Invests $10 Million as Anchor Investor in SignalPlus’ $50 Million Series B1 Round

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ROAD TOWN, British Virgin Islands, June 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — BlockBooster, a full-stack alternative asset management firm, announced today that its Digital Venture Fund I invested $10 million in SignalPlus, an institutional-grade crypto derivatives infrastructure platform, anchoring the company’s $50 million Series B1 financing round, with Goldman Sachs serving as sole financial advisor.

SignalPlus operates the industry’s leading trading terminal for institutional digital asset options and derivatives, trusted by the largest market makers, exchanges, and trading institutions worldwide. The company is now extending its institutional-grade infrastructure into traditional finance and preparing to launch SignalPlus 2.0, a platform upgrade that brings agentic AI into the trading workflow.

“This investment reflects our conviction that institutional capital will flow into digital assets through credible, institutional-grade infrastructure,” said Samuel Gu, Founder and CEO of BlockBooster. “SignalPlus is one of the most established teams in digital asset derivatives, and we are excited to support their next stage of growth.”

The investment in SignalPlus is aligned with BlockBooster’s strategy of backing category-defining infrastructure at the intersection of AI and digital asset markets, with a focus on trading, asset management, and tokenization primitives that can scale across both crypto-native and traditional financial institutions.

“SignalPlus has built the leading institutional infrastructure for digital asset derivatives, and we are now expanding globally and into traditional finance. We’re pleased to welcome BlockBooster, a full-stack alternative asset manager with deep institutional reach and expertise across tokenization and on-chain finance, and we look forward to working closely as we enter our next phase,” said Chris Yu, Co-Founder and CEO of SignalPlus.

BlockBooster is investing from its first fund, a $50 million Digital Venture Fund I focused on four core verticals: AI infrastructure, on-chain trading ecosystems, on-chain asset management, and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.

About BlockBooster

BlockBooster is a next-era alternative asset management firm for the digital age. The firm leverages blockchain technology to invest in, incubate, and manage the core assets of this new era, from Web3-native projects to real-world assets (RWA). As value co-creators, BlockBooster is dedicated to unlocking the long-term potential of these assets, capturing exceptional value for its partners and investors in the digital economy.

About SignalPlus

Headquartered in Hong Kong, SignalPlus builds institutional-grade derivatives trading infrastructure for the converging capital markets. Its platform provides professional options analytics, real-time risk management, and execution tools to hedge funds, market makers, proprietary trading desks, and asset managers across digital and traditional financial markets. The company partners with the industry’s leading exchanges and trading institutions, and is backed by HashKey Capital, AppWorks, Tencent, and other prominent technology and financial investors.

 

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SOURCE BlockBooster

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