In biopharma, time isn’t just money, it’s product, safety, and reputation on the line. Yet for decades, manufacturers have been operating in the dark, waiting five to twenty-eight days for microbial test results that determine whether a batch is safe or contaminated. That delay can cost companies tens to hundreds of millions of dollars per incident.

On a recent episode of Life Sciences Decoded, I sat down with Dr. Jack Regan, CEO, CTO, and Co-Founder of MantaBio, to discuss how his company is tackling this massive bottleneck with automation, PCR-based detection, and real-world insights.

The Cost of Flying Blind

In the biopharma world, manufacturing happens in warm, nutrient-rich bioreactors which are perfect not just for growing therapeutic biologics like Keytruda or Humira, but also for harboring microbial contamination.
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“If you're waiting 28 days to detect contamination, you're flying blind,” Regan explained. “You could be losing a $20 million batch or worse, contaminating multiple lines from a single source.”
Contamination risks extend beyond product loss. A single event can lead to:
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• Line or plant shutdowns
• Missed market windows
• Product recalls
• FDA fines and regulatory fallout

​MantaBio’s 2-Hour Solution
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Enter MantaBio, a company designing a fully automated, PCR-based microbial detection system called MantaVision, purpose-built for the demands of biomanufacturing.

“We’re not adapting clinical tech into biopharma,” Regan noted. “We’re building this from the ground up for industrial-scale testing.”

​Unlike traditional methods based on century-old cell culture, which involve plating samples and waiting for colonies to grow,  MantaBio delivers results in just two hours. That speed allows manufacturers to detect contamination early, intervene faster, and avoid unnecessary product loss.

Designed for Manufacturing Environments

A major advantage of MantaBio’s approach? It eliminates one of the biggest risks in microbial detection: sub-sampling errors. Traditional methods often rely on testing small sample volumes, which can easily miss low-level contamination. MantaVision is engineered to process larger volumes, increasing the statistical likelihood of catching contaminants before they become costly.
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And it’s not just about volume, it’s also about usability. The system is:

• Fully automated
• Run on-site - no shipping to reference labs
• Easy to use - no PhD required

As Jack Regan puts it: “It’s like the Keurig of molecular biology. Pop in your sample, and out comes a genetic result you can trust.”
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A Heart Monitor for Your Bioreactor

What makes MantaVision more than just a faster test is how it integrates across the entire manufacturing process. The MantaVision is intentionally modular by design, so that customers can easily scale up to meet their testing needs. Most companies would like to deploy 4-5 systems per line, testing at multiple stages, fermentation, harvest, purification, and final product.  It’s like having a continuous heart monitor for the bioreactor.

“If something spikes, you know early,” Regan explained. “You can pause, isolate, and resolve the issue before it snowballs.”

That kind of real-time insight doesn’t just save product. It gives manufacturers a clear path to more reliable operations, fewer recalls, and shorter time to market.

Not Just Faster — Smarter

Beyond rapid detection, MantaBio’s platform also supports speciation which is the ability to identify which microbe is present, not just whether contamination occurred. That insight helps teams perform root-cause analysis and prevent recurrence.

“The goal isn’t just speed,” Regan said. “It’s confidence in the results, in the product, and in the decisions you make next.”
 
What’s Next for MantaBio?

While the system is still in development, MantaBio is already working closely with leading biomanufacturers to ensure the platform meets real-world needs. The team is conducting rigorous validation, refining usability, and aligning with evolving regulatory expectations.
“There’s currently no dominant player delivering this kind of molecular testing in biopharma,” Regan said. “We’re building the system the industry has been asking for.”

​And that could change everything.

Want to learn more?
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Visit mantabio.com or follow MantaBio on LinkedIn for updates.
Listen to the full conversation on Life Sciences Decoded 

An interview with Eric Mayton, CEO of Cerillo | As featured on the Life Sciences Decoded podcast

Scientific research is moving faster than ever, and so is the need for tools that match that pace. On a recent episode of Life Sciences Decoded, we sat down with Eric Mayton, CEO of Cerillo, a company that's making waves with its innovative platform for microbial research and beyond.

Cerillo is a bio-tools company based in Charlottesville, Virginia, spun out of the University of Virginia. While small in size, just ten employees, Cerillo’s reach spans nearly 30 countries, thanks to a nimble business model, powerful partnerships, and a bold mission: to make research more reproducible, scalable, and flexible.

What’s Broken in Scientific Research?

According to Mayton, one of the major pain points in scientific research is the inability to study real-world microbial interactions with accuracy and speed. “Microbes don’t live in isolation, but we’ve been studying them as if they do,” he says. “It’s hard to control the thousands of variables that affect microbial behavior, and wet lab validation has been too expensive, too slow, and too complex.”

Cerillo’s solution? Miniaturized hardware, intuitive software, and a novel consumable that together create a platform for real-time, high-throughput experimentation, without the overhead of traditional systems.

The Duet System: Rethinking Microbial Interactions

One of Cerillo’s most innovative offerings is the Duet system, a plastic consumable that lets scientists study microbial interplay in a shared environment while keeping organisms physically separate using a semipermeable membrane. It’s a deceptively simple innovation with game-changing impact.
Mayton shares the story of a hospital-affiliated researcher investigating antibiotic-resistant syphilis cases post-COVID. Using just one Duet tray, the researcher tested various combinations of microbes and pinpointed the single species responsible for resistance, something that would have taken weeks using conventional tools. That discovery is now guiding more targeted therapies and reducing the unnecessary use of broad-spectrum antibiotics.

From Yogurt to Bioreactors

The use cases don’t stop at healthcare. “We have customers using the Duet for biofuel development, alcoholic fermentation, and even probiotic research in yogurt manufacturing,” says Mayton. “Our platform meets scientists where they are, whether they’re at the bench or scaling up for production.”
The key to this flexibility? Everything fits in a briefcase. Cerillo’s field kits are shipped globally, enabling partners to demonstrate, deploy, and support without an army of application specialists. Most users can go from unboxing to collecting data in under ten minutes.

Punching Above Their Weight

So how does a 10-person company compete in a space dominated by giants? Agility. “We’re able to take real feedback from customers and rapidly iterate,” says Mayton. “It’s not about the size of your R&D team—it’s how fast you can get the right tools into the right hands.”

Cerillo also emphasizes self-service and support. Their online Help Center, born from support ticket trends and FAQ analysis, ensures users can find what they need quickly. “It’s about empowering scientists to move at the speed of their ideas,” Mayton explains.

AI in the Lab: Hype or Help?

Mayton acknowledges that AI is everywhere, but it’s important to understand how and where it fits. “Large language models are great for speeding up documentation, protocol generation, and customer support,” he notes, “but they can’t make scientific decisions.” Instead, Cerillo is exploring other AI models, like Bayesian optimization, for real-time experimental design and autonomous science.

Myth-Busting the Bio-Tools Market
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As we wrapped up, Mayton addressed a common myth in the scientific tools space: “Just because you’ve built a cool product doesn’t mean people will adopt it. You have to connect the dots, show the customer how it fits into their workflow and why it matters.” Cerillo’s success lies not just in what they’ve built, but in how well they’ve listened, adapted, and supported their users.

From Bench to Breakthrough

Cerillo’s story is a compelling reminder that innovation doesn’t require a sprawling team or massive infrastructure. Sometimes, it just takes a smart system in a suitcase—and the will to meet scientists where they are.