Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | November 2, 2026 | Worcester Business Journal 29 What does Eascra Biotech manu- facture and what problems do your products solve? We're developing mRNA therapeu- tics that will be able to treat diseases like osteoarthritis, kidney disease and very hard-to-treat cancers like triple-negative breast cancer. At Eascra, we've developed a whole new type of technology that is a miniature container, a molecular-sized little con- tainer. We have taken this little con- tainer, we fill it up with mRNA, and then we chemically tweak it so that we can target it to the specific treatment area that we're trying to address. How does your technology differ from other therapeutic delivery systems? Part of the difference is that our technology has functional proper- ties that many therapeutic delivery platforms do not. So, we've overcome many of the big problems that are plaguing therapeutic drug delivery to- day. at's a big bottleneck when you think about how to develop advanced medications. If you can develop some- thing, but you can't target it to a cell or tissue, or you can't introduce it into the body without potential poor side effects for the patient, that's a funda- mental problem. Not only can we deliver the thera- peutics, but we can get them into the cell because our size, our shape and the overall construct of our delivery platform is unique in the industry. Most delivery technologies are round spheres. Ours is more of a tubular shape. And that means that we have a much smaller diameter, which makes it very easy for us to penetrate cells and tissues that most delivery platforms really struggle with, like articular cartilage, kidneys and very dense tumors. We have a whole list of different therapeutic cargos that we can deliver into many different cells and tissues. What role did NASA play in helping Eascra Biotech get off the ground? It's really hard to advance a pre- clinical company in the best of times. And I would argue that now is not the best of times for early-stage technol- ogy companies. One of the things that worked was, Yupeng and I were very deliberate in our planning and our thinking. We took advantage of whatever opportunities we could get. Yupeng was already working with NASA and had a project that was going to go to the International Space Station. While he was at a space conference, colleagues told him that NASA had a program called in-space manufacturing that was recruiting candidates with products that could potentially benefit from being pro- duced in microgravity. We submitted the proposal and March 22, 2022, we were notified that NASA was giving us $1.86 million for the research. We have discovered that when we produce our technology in space, it is 50% to 60% better. Eascra is con- tinuing to leverage microgravity for several reasons. One is we find that we can accelerate product development because of the way that cells act in space. We also continue to leverage microgravity funds to advance our company. How has your Worcester network sup- ported Eascra Biotech's growth? I cannot say enough nice things about MBI. We were paying a fraction of the cost to be in such a friendly F ounded in 2021 by Mari Anne Snow and Dr. Yupeng Chen, Eascra Biotech is a Worcester-based nano- medicine company whose unique Janus base nanoparticles (JBNps) are changing how therapeutic drugs are delivered into the human body. Headquartered at the Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives (MBI) startup incubator, Eascra Biotech is experiencing a period of growth, with $8 million in recent financing and an expansion into a larger, 1,272-square-foot lab. e company also manufactures JBNps in microgravity aboard the Interna- tional Space Station. WBJ talked with Snow about Eascra Biotech. Eascra Biotech charts an unconventional path for startup growth in space environment with access to so many shared services. We can leverage Worcester Polytechnic Institute and UMass Chan Medical School. We could punch above our weight with all these partnerships. Not only do we leverage the academic institutions, but we also leverage the tenants within the MBI community. I can't tell you how much mentoring, brainstorming, help, support and partnership comes through the MBI system. e idea of growing from our lab from a smaller space to a larger space was a no-brain- er. MBI is so committed to that sort of scale-up model. What would you like to see for the future of Eascra Biotech? Our goal is to help patients and solve unmet patient needs. We believe our technology has a lot of versatile capabilities. But new technology is new technology. Getting it adopted in the market is not only a product advancement, but it is also a change management exercise because people are anxious and skeptical about new things. We are also really proud of the fact that we brought a space connec- tion back to Worcester. We sit on the shoulders of other folks who brought space to Worcester. is interview was conducted and edited for length and clarity by WBJ Correspondent Sloane M. Perron. W PHOTO | COURTESY Mari Anne Snow CEO and co-founder Eascra Biotech Company location: 17 Briden St., Worcester (lab #103), located at the MBI incubator facility Year founded: Nov. 5, 2021 Employees: five, currently hiring three people Age: 58 Hometown: Providence, R.I. Residence: Providence, R.I. Education: Bachelor of Arts in English, University of New Hampshire; business, Harvard Extension Mari Anne Snow

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