Prellis Biologics

Cover Block

Name	Prellis Biologics
Tagline	Bioprints lymph node organoids for AI-powered antibody discovery
Headquarters	Berkeley, CA, USA
Founded	2016 [Prellis Biologics website]
Stage	Pre-IPO
Business Model	B2B
Industry	Healthtech
Technology	Biotech / Life Sciences
Geography	North America
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Solo Founder
Funding Label	Undisclosed

Links

• Website: https://prellisbio.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prellis-biologics/
• X / Twitter: https://twitter.com/PrellisBio

What an Investor Needs First

Prellis Biologics is a pre-IPO biotech using proprietary bioprinting to create functional human lymph node organoids, a platform that has secured multi-target discovery deals with Eli Lilly and Bristol Myers Squibb [PR Newswire, September 2025] [Businesswire, January 2022]. The company's wedge is speed and biological fidelity, aiming to replace animal models and accelerate therapeutic antibody generation by integrating its synthetic immune system with AI. Founded in 2016 by Dr. Melanie Matheu to address resolution limitations in bioprinting, the company is now led by CEO Mike Nohaile, a former senior leader from Generate Biomedicines and Amgen [BioSpace] [Prellis Biologics]. Its business model is B2B, partnering with pharmaceutical companies to de-risk and accelerate early-stage discovery, backed by investors including Khosla Ventures and Celesta [Prellis Biologics].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Key partnership and leadership facts are reported by press releases; founding and investor details are from company sources.

Taxonomy Snapshot

Axis	Value
Stage	Pre-IPO
Business Model	B2B
Industry / Vertical	Healthtech
Technology Type	Biotech / Life Sciences
Geography	North America
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Solo Founder
Funding	Undisclosed

Inside the Company

Prellis Biologics was founded in October 2016 by Dr. Melanie Matheu to address a specific technical bottleneck in the field of bioprinting [Prellis Biologics]. The company's founding premise centered on the inability of existing technologies to print at the resolution and speed required to replicate functional human tissue systems, a limitation Dr. Matheu aimed to solve with a novel photolithography-based approach.

The company is headquartered in Berkeley, California, and has operated as a private entity since its founding. A significant operational milestone was the appointment of Mike Nohaile, PhD, as CEO, a move announced in conjunction with a strategic partnership in September 2025 [PR Newswire, September 2025]. Nohaile's background includes senior leadership roles at Generate Biomedicines, Amgen, and Novartis [BioSpace]. Dr. Matheu remains a board member of the company [Lyric Bio].

The company's development timeline is punctuated by two major pharmaceutical validation events. In January 2022, Prellis announced a Collaboration and License Agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb to apply its EXIS™ platform for antibody therapeutics and target discovery [Businesswire, January 2022]. This was followed in September 2025 by a multi-target drug discovery collaboration with Eli Lilly, which explicitly includes challenging target classes like GPCRs [PR Newswire, September 2025].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Foundational dates and key executive appointments are sourced from company materials and press releases; the Bristol Myers Squibb agreement is corroborated by a business wire release. The Eli Lilly partnership is recent and publicly announced.

Under the Hood

The core of Prellis Biologics is its EXIS™ (Externalized Immune System) platform, a synthetic, animal-free system designed to replicate human immune biology for therapeutic antibody discovery [Prellis Biologics]. The company's foundational technology is a proprietary bioprinting method that uses holographic two-photon photolithography to create three-dimensional lymph node organoids (LNO™) [Prellis Biologics]. The company claims this approach is 100 times faster than competitor bioprinters and achieves 10 to 100 times better resolution, enabling the fabrication of complex vascularized tissue structures at a nanometer scale [Prellis Biologics].

This bioprinting capability is applied to generate functional lymph node organoids populated with immune cells from human donors. The platform then uses these organoids to produce fully human antibody candidates, a process the company states can be completed in three to four weeks [PR Newswire, September 2025]. The workflow integrates what the company calls its "AntiGen AI" platform, which is used to analyze and triage the resulting antibody sequences for therapeutic potential [PR Newswire, September 2025].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core platform claims sourced from company materials; partnership and timeline details corroborated by a single press release. Technical performance claims (speed, resolution) are unverified by independent sources.

Market Research and Opportunity

The market for human antibody discovery platforms is being reshaped by a push to de‑risk preclinical development and accelerate timelines. According to a 2023 report by Grand View Research, the global monoclonal antibodies market was valued at approximately $210.1 billion and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.3% through 2030 [Grand View Research, 2023]. A separate analysis by MarketsandMarkets estimated the global drug discovery market at $81.2 billion in 2023 and forecast it to reach $138.5 billion by 2028 [MarketsandMarkets, 2023].

Metric	Value
Monoclonal Antibodies Market (2030 projection)	$210.1B
Drug Discovery Market (2028 projection)	$138.5B

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Market sizing figures are from third‑party analyst reports (Grand View Research, MarketsandMarkets) and represent analogous, broad markets. Specific TAM/SAM for lymph node organoid platforms is not publicly quantified.

Competition and Substitutes

Prellis Biologics competes in a specialized wedge of the antibody discovery market, where its primary differentiation is the use of bioprinted human lymph node organoids as a discovery engine, rather than purely computational or animal-based methods. The competitive map for human antibody discovery is segmented by approach. On one side are computational design platforms like those from Generate Biomedicines and Nabla Bio, which use generative AI and protein language models to design antibodies in silico. On the other are traditional animal-based immunization and display technologies (e.g., phage display). Prellis positions itself between these segments, using a physical, biology-first platform, the EXIS™ system, to generate antibodies from a functional human immune system in vitro.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitive analysis relies on company claims for technology differentiation and announced partnerships; detailed competitor metrics are not publicly available for comparison.

Opportunity

If Prellis Biologics can successfully industrialize its bioprinted lymph node platform for antibody discovery, the prize is a foundational role in the next generation of therapeutic development. The headline opportunity for Prellis is to become the default externalized immune system for preclinical antibody discovery, a category-defining platform that replaces animal models and traditional in vitro methods for a significant portion of the industry's pipeline. The company's claim of generating fully human antibodies in 3-4 weeks, if consistently validated in these partnerships, directly addresses the industry's primary pain points of speed and translational fidelity [PR Newswire, September 2025].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Key opportunity elements (partnerships, platform claims) are cited from press releases and company materials; growth scenarios are extrapolated from hiring patterns and investor profiles.

Sources

1. [Prellis Biologics] Dr. Melanie Matheu | Prellis Biologics | https://www.prellisbio.com/melanie-matheu
2. [Prellis Biologics] Careers at Prellis Biologics: Join Our Team | https://prellisbio.com/careers
3. [PR Newswire, September 2025] Prellis Biologics Enters Multi-Target Drug Discovery & Development Collaboration with Lilly to Advance Human Antibody Therapeutics | https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/prellis-biologics-enters-multi-target-drug-discovery--development-collaboration-with-lilly-to-advance-human-antibody-therapeutics-302562425.html
4. [Businesswire, January 2022] Prellis Biologics Announces Collaboration and License Agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb | https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220113005314/en/Prellis-Biologics-Announces-Collaboration-and-License-Agreement-with-Bristol-Myers-Squibb
5. [BioSpace] Prellis Biologics Appoints New CEO, Raises $35 Million in Series C Funding | https://www.biospace.com/prellis-biologics-appoints-new-ceo-raises-35-million-in-series-c-funding-to-use-human-immune-system-biology-to-de-risk-and-accelerate-therapeutics-drug-discovery-and-development
6. [Lyric Bio] Dr. Melanie Matheu | https://www.lyric.bio/team/melanie-matheu
7. [Grand View Research, 2023] Monoclonal Antibodies Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report | https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/monoclonal-antibodies-market
8. [MarketsandMarkets, 2023] Drug Discovery Market by Process, Type, End User, Region - Global Forecast to 2028 | https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/drug-discovery-technologies-market-1084.html
9. [Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 2021] Translational value of animal models | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41573-021-00204-6
10. [U.S. Congress, 2022] FDA Modernization Act 2.0 | https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/5002/text
11. [PitchBook] Generate Biomedicines Company Profile | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/248717-10