Capra Biosciences Advances Domestic Manufacturing of Essential Medicines with Continued HHS Support
Follow-on investment builds on prior work to advance seven pharmaceutical ingredients toward commercial-scale domestic production
STERLING, Va., Aug. 04, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Capra Biosciences, Inc., a biomanufacturing company leveraging modular, continuous bioreactor technology to enable flexible, cost-competitive domestic production of pharmaceutical ingredients, today announced continued progress under its project agreement with the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The additional investment brings Capra’s total ASPR funding to approximately $17 million and supports the company’s ongoing efforts to onshore the production of critical active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) currently sourced almost exclusively overseas.
“Biotechnology offers tremendous power over traditional chemistry for making APIs because it is not limited by supply chains for key starting materials,” said Andrew Magyar, Ph.D., Capra’s co-founder and CTO. “With our initial ASPR funding, we successfully demonstrated that our modular reactors can produce high-quality APIs. This continued support enables us to take the next step toward cGMP (current good manufacturing processes) production and regulatory filings that put these molecules on a path to market.”
Moving Beyond a Proof of Concept into Broader Production
Under its initial $7.5 million ASPR award, announced in July 2024, Capra executed its CoMPASS (Continuous BioManufacturing Process Analysis for Scaling API Synthesis) project, building an AI-enabled pipeline for rapid development and scaling of biologically derived pharmaceutical ingredients. Working in collaboration with Google X’s A-Life team, Capra combined advanced AI predictions for gene and pathway expression with its proprietary synthetic biology capabilities to accelerate upstream strain engineering.
As a result, Capra successfully validated production of two API targets – aspirin and acetaminophen – in their modular bioreactors in less than two years, a radically accelerated timeline for the industry. The project validated the biomanufacturing company’s ability to deliver multiple APIs with quick turnaround and led to additional investment for additional APIs.
Advancing Multiple Molecules Toward Commercial Readiness
Capra will now apply the rapid development and scale-up capabilities developed with Google X’s A-Life team and Next Rung Technologies to additional critical pharmaceutical ingredients. This brings the company’s total number of API targets for domestic production to seven.
Capra plans to work with United States Pharmacopeia (USP) to advance five of the seven APIs to population scale, commercially-mature manufacturing (Technology Readiness Level 10). USP will help to accelerate biomanufacturing readiness of these essential APIs through analytical development and testing, working with its Pharmatech subsidiary to offer control strategy development, chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC), and regulatory support. USP is an independent, non-profit organization that collaborates with scientific experts and global stakeholders to develop science-based standards and solutions that help simplify complex manufacturing supply chains, enhance supply reliability and quality, and support the adoption of innovation.
This project has been funded in whole or in part with federal funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR); Center for Industrial Base Manufacturing and Supply Chain; Other Transaction Authority agreement number #75A50123D00003 via ASPR’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority’s Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Preparedness (BioMaP) OTA Consortium. The investment builds on ongoing efforts to strengthen domestic biopharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities.
About A-Life
A-Life is Google X’s moonshot to unlock the manufacturing power of biology. We apply a new kind of artificial intelligence designed for the complex ecosystems used in biomanufacturing. A-Life’s Biological Systems Intelligence platform models the components of the ecosystem together to make predictions about what works best at commercial scale. These insights have enabled A-Life’s partners across a range of industries to achieve faster development timelines and better performance at scale. The promise of the bioeconomy has never been greater.
Learn more at https://x.company/projects/a-life/
About Next Rung Technology
Next Rung Technology is an engineering and consulting company focused on commercializing and scaling sustainable process technologies. They offer hands-on project support, engineering design, business strategy and analysis to teams of all sizes. Founded by a group of startup veterans, Next Rung is passionate about solving environmental challenges with innovative technology design. Their team supports growing companies on the complex journey from concept to commercialization, providing plant and product design, unique techno-economic models and analysis, construction support, on-site commissioning and plant engineering troubleshooting. Leveraging diverse real-world scaling experience, they support emerging technologies companies on their scaling journey as they grow towards commercial viability.
About Capra Biosciences
Capra Biosciences is building the chemical factory of the future: modular biomanufacturing facilities that produce high-value specialty chemicals and pharmaceutical ingredients using biology instead of traditional petrochemistry. The company’s proprietary modular bioreactor platform enables rapid production of multiple molecules from a single facility using continuous biomanufacturing architectures designed to reduce capital costs and accelerate scale-up. In addition, the ability to rapidly reconfigure across products allows a single site to manufacture dozens of different ingredients without dedicated infrastructure for each. Capra's Sterling, Virginia facility is already operational and has demonstrated production of molecules spanning personal care actives and pharmaceutical APIs. Capra is a trusted partner of the U.S. government, tasked with advancing the manufacturing of critical API targets, and is backed by leading institutional investors.
Learn more at http://www.caprabiosciences.com
Media Contact:
Andrew Magyar
617-869-0843
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