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Waterfall Scientific Awarded Up to $54.5 Million from ARPA-H to Lead Consortium Developing Continuous-Flow Cell-Free mRNA Manufacturing and Characterization Platform

Business Wire

Consortium partners Ansa Biotechnologies, Volta Labs, Polymorphic Biosciences, Tensentric, and Ginkgo Bioworks join Waterfall Scientific on the ESCALATOR (Engineering a Small-scale, Continuous-flow manufacturing Apparatus to Launch A Transformational Overhaul for RNA medicines) project under the ARPA-H GIVE program.

WORCESTER, Mass., September 02, 2026--Waterfall Scientific, a biotechnology company pioneering continuous-flow RNA manufacturing technologies, today announced that it has been selected by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to lead a six-company consortium under the Genetic Medicines and Individualized Manufacturing for Everyone (GIVE) program. The project, titled ESCALATOR, brings together a network of industry leaders in cell-free nucleic acid synthesis, LNP formulation, microfluidics, advanced analytics, and hardware and software engineering, supported by an award of up to $54.5 million.

ARPA-H supports high-impact, innovative efforts intended to accelerate breakthroughs in health and medicine. The GIVE program aims to transform the speed, scale, and accessibility of manufacturing for complex genetic medicines. Under Waterfall Scientific's leadership as prime contractor, the consortium will integrate advanced technologies to establish an end-to-end, continuous-flow platform capable of rapid, on-demand production and characterization of high-purity messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines.

Driving Next-Generation Cell-Free Manufacturing

Traditional mRNA manufacturing relies on batch-based processes, creating production bottlenecks, high costs, and scalability challenges, which are particularly acute during public health emergencies or for personalized medicine deployment. The ESCALATOR platform seeks to overcome these barriers by developing a fully integrated microfluidic DNA synthesis, RNA transcription, purification, formulation and fill/finish system, coupled with an automated drug substance/product characterization system.

"Leading this landmark ARPA-H initiative alongside such exceptional consortium partners marks a pivotal milestone for Waterfall Scientific as we advance our innovative technology," said Inna Shcherbakova, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Waterfall Scientific. "This award strongly endorses our continuous-flow paradigm. By uniting best-in-class capabilities across enzymatic DNA synthesis, formulation, microfluidics, automated hardware, and high-throughput analytics, we are establishing a scalable platform that will redefine how nucleic acid therapies are manufactured globally."

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