Attagene Inc.

Attagene Inc., a self-certified small disadvantaged business based in Morrisville, North Carolina, delivers high-throughput cellular and molecular assays for environmental toxicology, water quality surveillance, and drug discovery mode-of-action assessment to federal research agencies as a prime contractor (100% of recent awards). The company operates exclusively in the prime role with no subcontract footprint; it competes full-and-open rather than under set-aside vehicles.

Attagene's capability portfolio centers on its proprietary Factorial platform, which quantifies transcription factor activity to generate aggregate bioactivity response indices across complex chemical mixtures and natural product libraries. The company's federal work spans two distinct domains. On the environmental side, Attagene provides multi-endpoint gene regulatory assays for contaminant detection—exemplified by a $49,980 sole-source purchase order from the U.S. Geological Survey (awarded September 2026) to analyze approximately ten groundwater samples annually for petroleum hydrocarbon contaminants, and a $572,187 federal grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (awarded August 2025) to develop a two-tier water bioactivity surveillance system called WASANET that combines high-throughput factorial screening with targeted chemical analysis. On the drug-discovery side, Attagene received a federal grant of $532,547 from the National Cancer Institute (awarded September 2023) to assign mode of action to phenotypically discovered anticancer leads derived from natural products using transcription factor activity profiling. The Factorial platform was validated under the EPA's ToxCAST program and recognized with a White House Tibbetts Award.

Customer concentration is extreme. The Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development accounts for 30 awards and $66.3 million of the combined potential value (89% of all awards, 99% of dollars). The Department of the Interior's U.S. Geological Survey, the EPA's Office of the Administrator, and the National Institutes of Health's divisions round out a thin long tail. Attagene places task orders under EPA Indefinite Delivery Contracts EPD12054 (16 task orders, $5.2 million) and EPW07049 (11 task orders, $3.8 million). Activity has been sparse in recent years—one award in 2026, one in 2025, one in 2023—after higher volume in earlier periods, with only one award facing completion in the next twenty-four months and thus minimal recompete exposure near term.