PLEASANTON, CA – GenTegra, LLC was awarded a prestigious Phase IIb Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for $2.8 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID).

This three-year grant will fund the development of filter paper technologies for the collection and stabilization of RNA virus and total RNA in whole blood, plasma at ambient temperatures and for subsequent shipping to and analysis at a centrally located laboratory. “This effort will expand the company’s ability to provide advanced technologies by extending the power of its ambient temperature preservation technologies to the field collection of labile microbial pathogens: Zika and other Flaviviruses in particular, while preserving the total complement of RNA in whole blood at ambient,” President Shanavaz Nasarabadi said in a statement.

“Our new, paper-based technology will provide formulations that are fully REACH-ECHA compliant and thus suitable to international-scale blood sample field collection, shipping, and storage in the complete absence of refrigeration at any step,” GenTegra CSO Dr. Michael Hogan added.

Pleasanton, California-based GenTegra LLC is a world leader in developing Active Chemical Protection™ technologies for the ambient dry storage of DNA, RNA, proteins, and other biological molecules and reducing the costs of maintaining biobanks and biorepositories for individual researches, pharmacogenomics companies, and hospitals.

GenTegra, LLC has been developing paper-based nucleic acid stabilizing products with its commercialization partner Ahlstrom-Munksjö since 2013 and launched its first commercial product, Ahlstrom-Munksjö GenSaver™ DNA Collection Card, in 2016. The Ahlstrom-Munksjö GenSaver™ card was the result of primary research accomplished under DARPA funded R&D grants and was commercialized using GenTegra’s core technologies for preserving nucleic acids, GenTegra®-DNA and GenTegra®-RNA.

Contact: James Nelson, VP Marketing

[email protected]

1-925-461-3010