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| Schmidt & Nabi | |
|---|---|
| Name | Schmidt & Nabi |
| Type | Private |
| Industry | Biotechnology |
| Founded | 2014 |
| Founders | Hans Schmidt; Amir Nabi |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Key people | Hans Schmidt; Amir Nabi; Dr. Lila Chen |
| Products | Recombinant proteins; Cell culture reagents; Custom biologics |
| Revenue | Unknown |
| Employees | ~200 (2024) |
Schmidt & Nabi is a biotechnology company focused on recombinant protein production, cell culture reagents, and contract development and manufacturing services. The firm operates in the biopharmaceutical supply chain serving academic laboratories, contract research organizations, and pharmaceutical companies. It emphasizes recombinant expression platforms and quality-control workflows intended to support translational research and biologics discovery.
Schmidt & Nabi was founded in 2014 by entrepreneurs Hans Schmidt and Amir Nabi, who previously held positions at Genentech, Amgen, and Biogen. Early seed financing involved investors from Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and angel backers associated with Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Initial operations were established in a laboratory near Mission Bay, San Francisco, with subsequent expansion to manufacturing and research sites in the San Francisco Bay Area and a process development unit in the San Diego region. Key early partnerships included collaborations with University of California, San Francisco and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard for reagent validation and pilot studies.
By 2018 Schmidt & Nabi had moved into larger facilities and secured contracts with several small-molecule and biologics developers. Strategic hires included senior scientists from Pfizer and Roche, and the firm raised growth capital from TPG-affiliated investors and life-science–focused venture firms. In 2021 Schmidt & Nabi launched expanded services to include custom protein engineering and GMP-compatible reagent lines, citing market demand driven by programs at Moderna and BioNTech. The company remains privately held and has pursued both commercial supply agreements and research collaborations with public research institutions.
Schmidt & Nabi’s core product portfolio centers on recombinant proteins, growth factors, and specialized cell culture reagents. Catalog items include recombinant cytokines, growth factors, and extracellular matrix components used by labs at Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins University, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The company sells enzyme reagents and tagged proteins compatible with analytical platforms from Thermo Fisher Scientific, Agilent Technologies, and PerkinElmer.
Technological offerings span expression in mammalian systems (CHO and HEK293 derivatives), insect-cell systems tied to Baculovirus workflows, and yeast platforms influenced by methods used at Novozymes and Eli Lilly. Schmidt & Nabi markets both research-grade and GMP-grade reagents suited for clients such as Sanofi and smaller biologics developers. The product roadmap has included stabilized cytokine formulations, protein conjugates targeting workflows used at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and affinity-tag libraries compatible with instrumentation from GE Healthcare.
R&D at Schmidt & Nabi has emphasized optimization of expression constructs, glycoengineering, and process-scale purification. Internal teams have published preclinical validation data in collaborations with investigators from Columbia University, Yale University, and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health on protein stability and activity assays. Projects have explored glycosylation patterns relevant to therapeutics developed by companies such as AstraZeneca and Takeda, using analytics similar to those employed by Agilent and Waters Corporation.
The company operates a process development laboratory where teams adapt methods used in industry by Genzyme and process engineers formerly from Baxter International. R&D priorities include assay standardization for ligand-binding studies, scale-down models for bioreactors akin to systems by Sartorius, and accelerated stability testing compatible with regulatory expectations from U.S. Food and Drug Administration reviewers. Collaborative grant-funded projects with academic partners have targeted reproducibility and reagent traceability, echoing initiatives from National Institutes of Health-sponsored reproducibility programs.
Schmidt & Nabi is organized into business units for manufacturing, research services, commercial sales, and quality assurance. Executive leadership has included professionals with backgrounds at Merck & Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Cytiva. Operations encompass manufacturing suites designed to meet GMP-like standards, quality control laboratories employing instrumentation from Beckman Coulter and Shimadzu, and a supply-chain group coordinating logistics with providers such as FedEx and DHL Global Forwarding. The company maintains an internal regulatory affairs function liaising with agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and international counterparts such as the European Medicines Agency.
Employee training programs have drawn on curricula used at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and corporate learning practices from Johnson & Johnson. Corporate governance includes a board with representatives from venture firms and serial founders who previously served on boards at Illumina and Twist Bioscience.
Clients and partners span academic institutions, biotech startups, and established pharmaceutical firms. Notable collaborations have been announced with groups at Massachusetts General Hospital, Karolinska Institutet, and contract research organizations like Charles River Laboratories and Covance. Commercial supply agreements reportedly include reagent provisions to cell-therapy developers affiliated with Bluebird Bio and biologics process groups at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.
Strategic alliances include distribution relationships with scientific suppliers such as VWR International and Fisher Scientific, and technological partnerships integrating Schmidt & Nabi products into platforms from Illumina and PacBio for certain assay workflows. The company also participates in industry consortia alongside BIO and regional trade organizations to align standards for reagent traceability.
Publicly reported controversies have been limited but include disputes over intellectual property and supplier contracts. Schmidt & Nabi faced a commercial litigation claim from a competitor alleging trade-secret misappropriation; the case involved parties previously associated with Thermo Fisher Scientific-related supply chains and was handled in state civil courts. The company has been involved in contract disputes with small vendors and in claims concerning lot-to-lot variability raised by academic customers at institutions such as University of California, Los Angeles and University of Michigan.
Regulatory inspections related to GMP-like operations have prompted remediation steps similar to corrective actions seen at other suppliers, and the firm has published statements about implementing enhanced quality programs and third-party audits by consultancies formerly working with PwC and Ernst & Young. No criminal charges have been publicly reported as of 2024.
Category:Biotechnology companies