Celdara Medical, LLC

Celdara Medical, LLC, a self-certified small disadvantaged business headquartered in Lebanon, New Hampshire, develops cell-based and protein-engineering therapeutics for biomedical research through federal research grants and one regional innovation-cluster services contract, operating exclusively as a prime recipient on all 50 federal awards in the source period.

Celdara competes in full-and-open grant mechanisms rather than set-aside vehicles. The company's federal footprint is almost entirely research-grant driven, dominated by the National Institutes of Health across multiple institutes and centers. The source records 13 awards from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, $1.8 million combined potential value), five awards from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and subsidiary awards from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, the National Institute on Aging, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The Small Business Administration's Office of Investments and Innovations accounts for the single largest award by dollar magnitude: a $2.6 million firm-fixed-price contract for regional innovation cluster services supporting small businesses in advanced computing, biotechnology, clean energy, and cybersecurity, awarded in September 2024 with ultimate completion in May 2025.

Celdara's capability portfolio centers on early-stage biomedical innovation across multiple therapeutic modalities. Representative Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants show the depth of this work: a $320,863 NIAID grant (awarded September 2026, performance through August 2027) for precision chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) natural killer cell therapy targeting autoreactive B cells in systemic lupus erythematosus; a $356,328 National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grant (September 2026) developing allogeneic cell therapy for difficult-to-treat inflammatory bowel disease; a $621,128 National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences award (July 2026) for engineered regulatory T cells as a cell-based therapy for Gaucher syndrome; a $320,863 NIAID award (August 2026) for CM-HZ01, an interleukin-2 super agonist targeting osteomyelitis; and a direct-to-Phase-II National Cancer Institute grant (January 2025) developing CM-HZ01 for metastatic melanoma. Earlier Phase I and Phase II work includes CAR T cell platforms for solid tumors, monoclonal antibodies for pandemic influenza (CM-IAV1), neuroprotective therapies for acute ischemic stroke (CM-EA1), and antimicrobial peptides for multidrug-resistant infections (CM-YPD1). Celdara also administers the Alzheimer's-Focused Celdara Medical High-Potential Entrepreneurial Fellowship (A-CHEF), a National Institute on Aging training program run in collaboration with eight Northeast universities, teaching biomedical scientists the transition from academia to biotech entrepreneurship across drug development, intellectual property, regulatory pathways, and financing.

The NIH accounts for 72% of recent awards by count and dominates the customer base across 13 distinct federal agencies. This concentration reflects Celdara's positioning as a biomedical research-stage company; the SBA's Regional Innovation Clusters contract is the only federal services or procurement vehicle in the footprint. Award activity declined from five awards in 2022 to one in 2024 before rising to four in 2026, suggesting a rebalancing toward research grant momentum. Six awards carry ultimate completion dates within the next twenty-four months, representing a modest recompete exposure in the grant cycle.

The SCI dataset, limited to service contracts above the $150,000 threshold, captures $1.1 million in invoiced revenue during FY2022 only (across 2.2 FTEs), with zero SCI-reported activity in FY2023, FY2024, and FY2025. This reflects the company's research-grant dominated profile; SCI excludes grants and the goods-and-product components central to biotech firms. On the service contracts captured in SCI, government-paid hourly rates ranged from a 10th percentile of $188.23/hr to a median of $201.21/hr, with senior labor priced through $214.19/hr. Celdara operates as a sole prime on SCI-reportable work, with subcontractors accounting for only 6% of reported hours across identified prime contracts and one named subcontractor total. The company's federal delivery model is substantially in-house rather than subcontractor-dependent, typical of early-stage biotech firms where intellectual property and technical execution remain founder-led or tightly controlled.