Viral Vector Scientist - Gene Therapy

New York City biotech startups Neion Bio and Barnwell Bio partner to advance biomanufacturing and biosecurity. The collaboration brings together Neion Bio's egg-based biologics manufacturing platform and Barnwell Bio's metagenomic biosurveillance capabilities, while highlighting the growing New York City life sciences ecosystem. NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Neion Bio, a biotechnology company revolutionizing the production of biologic medicines, and Barnwell Bio, an animal health intelligence company, today announced a strategic collaboration under which Barnwell will provide biosurveillance to Neion to support proactive flock health and biosecurity across its avian operations. The collaboration brings together two New York City biotechnology companies that are applying frontier technologies to chicken biology in very different but complementary ways. Neion Bio uses precision genetic engineering to turn chicken eggs into highly efficient factories for recombinant proteins, including monoclonal antibodies, enzymes, fusion proteins and other complex biologics. Barnwell Bio takes a population-level approach to flock health: rather than testing individual birds for specific pathogens, the company analyzes easily attainable environmental samples to capture an entire flock's microbial ecosystem, translating hundreds of thousands of data points into a microbiome fingerprint unique to each facility. That fingerprint can flag a pathogen spike ahead of other methods, shifting flock health management from reactive to proactive. Under the agreement, Neion will incorporate Barnwell's technology into its avian operations to gain additional longitudinal visibility into the health and microbial environment of its flocks as Neion scales its Raptor(TM) manufacturing platform. "We are transforming the egg into a factory for recombinant proteins, which means the health and welfare of the chicken producing it is an essential part of our platform," said Dimi Kellari, cofounder and CEO of Neion Bio. "As we rethink biologics manufacturing from the ground up, we also have an opportunity to rethink how we monitor and manage the biological systems behind it. Barnwell has developed a powerful way of understanding what is happening across a flock over time, and we believe this additional data layer will become increasingly valuable as we scale and commercialize our platform." Neion's Raptor platform uses frontier genetic engineering to program hens to express target recombinant proteins directly in their eggs. The approach replaces much of the capital-intensive infrastructure traditionally associated with biologics manufacturing with a biological system optimized by evolution to produce and stabilize large quantities of complex proteins. These capabilities are expected to transform biologics production over time and increase both innovation velocity and supply chain resiliency throughout the biotech industry. Neion emerged from stealth in March 2026 with its first commercial agreement with a major pharmaceutical company for the development and supply of multiple biosimilars. In June of this year, the company raised an oversubscribed $23 million Series A financing to advance the Raptor platform and expand its pipeline across biosimilars, innovative medicines, critical reagents and animal health. Barnwell Bio approaches poultry biology from another direction. Founded by a team that helped build the United States COVID-19 wastewater monitoring infrastructure, the company applies the same principle of population-level biosurveillance to animal health. "We are building the next generation data platform to support animal health and wellness," said Michael Rhys, cofounder and CEO of Barnwell Bio. "Neion is building something genuinely new in biologics manufacturing, and we are excited to bring our biosurveillance capabilities into that system. Building sophisticated flock health monitoring into Neion's operations from an early stage reflects the kind of forward-thinking approach that can help transform an industry." Barnwell Bio announced $6 million in oversubscribed seed financing in January 2026 to expand its biosurveillance platform and its growing poultry health dataset. Its technology is currently being used in commercial poultry operations across the country to help producers and veterinarians better understand pathogen dynamics, evaluate health interventions and identify emerging changes in flock health before they become larger operational problems. While poultry is Barnwell's initial focus, the underlying platform is built to extend across livestock more broadly, including swine, dairy and aquaculture, supporting the global animal health market. The companies believe the collaboration reflects the growing breadth of New York City's life sciences industry, extending well beyond traditional therapeutics and diagnostics into new approaches that are reimagining how biology can be used to solve some of the world's most complex challenges. About Neion Bio Neion Bio is pioneering a new era in biomanufacturing, using frontier genetic engineering to harness nature's most prolific molecular factory - the egg - to produce biological medicines with unprecedented efficiency, scalability, and environmental sustainability. Founded in 2024, Neion aims to dramatically lower the cost of biologics manufacturing to spur biotech innovation and democratize global access to life-changing therapies. Neion's Raptor(TM) platform enables localized, resilient domestic manufacturing of critical medicines, strengthening national security while unlocking significant commercial opportunities. Led by a multidisciplinary team of scientists and industry veterans with deep expertise in genetic engineering, biologics manufacturing, and commercialization, Neion is building a platform designed to reset the boundaries of what is possible in biomanufacturing. The company aims to become the partner of choice for upstream biologics manufacturing and deliver transformational advantages for the biotech industry and patients worldwide, https://www.neionbio.com. About Barnwell Bio Barnwell Bio is an animal health intelligence company bridging the gap between advanced biosurveillance and commercial livestock production. Founded by experts who helped scale the U.S. national COVID-19 wastewater monitoring infrastructure, Barnwell Bio utilizes metagenomic sequencing and microbiome data to provide producers and animal health companies with an early-warning system for disease. Headquartered in New York, the company is dedicated to making animal protein production more predictable, profitable, and sustainable. For more information, https://www.barnwellbio.com. Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

Neion Bio raises USD 23m Series A to scale egg-based bio-manufacturing. June 12, 2026 New York-based Neion Bio, Inc., a biotechnology company developing a genetic engineering-based platform for biologics manufacturing, has closed an oversubscribed USD 23 million Series A financing round to advance its Raptor platform and expand a pipeline spanning biosimilars, innovative medicines, critical reagents, and animal health. The Neion Bio Series A funding positions the company to accelerate a manufacturing approach it argues could materially reduce the cost and capital intensity of producing complex biologic medicines. The round was led by Caffeinated Capital, an early backer of the company, with participation from new investors Digitalis Ventures, Ensemble VC, and Trust Ventures, alongside follow-on investment from existing backers Haystack and Basis Set Ventures, among others. The company said proceeds will fund pipeline expansion and continued development of proprietary technologies designed to enable biologics production at meaningful scale within days - a timeline the company says would enable faster iteration cycles for screening and production of novel molecules. Neion Bio's central premise is that the chicken egg, refined over hundreds of millions of years of evolution and centuries of selective breeding, represents an underutilized production system for complex therapeutic proteins. The company's Raptor platform uses precision genome engineering - made possible by recent advances in avian primordial germ cell (PGC) biology and large genomic datasets - to restrict recombinant protein expression to the egg itself. The result, the company said, is a sterile, self-contained, naturally high-yield vessel that sidesteps the capital-intensive bioreactor infrastructure associated with conventional mammalian cell culture manufacturing. The scientific rationale is that eggs already produce and stabilise large quantities of protein in a controlled biological environment. By engineering the genome of the laying hen rather than building industrial steel tanks or maintaining complex disposable plastic systems, Neion argues it can achieve consistent protein expression with simplified operations and a manufacturing footprint that is both more resilient and more cost-efficient than traditional approaches. The platform is said to be particularly suited to complex, glycosylated proteins that have proven difficult to express using conventional methods - a category that includes many high-value biologics currently on the market or in development. The approach places Neion in a distinct segment of the biologics manufacturing landscape. Traditional contract development and manufacturing organisations rely on Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell culture as the dominant production system for monoclonal antibodies and related biologics. Transgenic avian platforms have been explored previously - including by companies such as Synageva BioPharma, which produced sebelipase alfa in eggs before its 2015 acquisition by Alexion - but Neion's founders argue that advances in precision genome engineering now make the approach substantially more tractable and scalable than earlier iterations. Prior commercial traction and team build-out. The Series A follows a period of deliberate platform and team development since the company's founding in 2024. Neion launched with approximately USD 11 million in financing from a consortium led by Caffeinated Capital with significant participation from Basis Set Ventures and Haystack VC. When the company emerged from stealth earlier this year, it simultaneously announced its first commercial co-development and supply agreement with an undisclosed major pharmaceutical company, covering the development and commercialisation of up to three monoclonal antibodies. That deal, structured to include upfront and milestone payments along with profit-sharing on commercialised products, provided early validation of the Raptor(TM) platform's commercial applicability to the biosimilars market. In April 2026, Neion appointed James Kehler, VMD, PhD, as Head of Avian Sciences. Kehler joined from Colossal Biosciences, where he served as Vice President of BioSynergy. His work in cloning mammals from blood was recognised by TIME magazine as one of the best inventions of 2025. The appointment followed the earlier recruitment of Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Sven Bocklandt, also from Colossal Biosciences, where he directed genetic engineering efforts central to the company's de-extinction programs. Both hires reflect a deliberate strategy of recruiting scientists with frontier genome engineering expertise into the platform's technical leadership. This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed and edited by the AllSci editorial team Explore more at AllSci News: https://allsci.com/news/