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delivery method, protein expression system, and even
growth environment.

They are also challenging assumptions that have dominated
the biologics space for decades:

• That injection is the only viable route.
• That cold chain is an unavoidable cost.
• That immune rejection is just a numbers game.

Instead, they are leveraging plant-based expression, oral
delivery, and gut-based immunology to create therapies that
are more stable, more scalable, and more biologically
acceptable. They are not working around the immune
system—they are working with it.

And perhaps most importantly: they understand that
potency without persistence is meaningless. These aren’t
drugs that dazzle in a 12-week window only to be replaced
six months later. These are therapies designed to endure—
not despite the immune system, but because they honor its
rules.

Academia: From Mechanism to Application

If startups are building the next generation of biologics,
academia is where the blueprint is being redrawn. The ideas
once dismissed as theoretical—mucosal tolerance, antigen-
specific immune retraining, gut-based delivery—are now
crossing the translational chasm.

Leading universities and research institutions are advancing
this field at an extraordinary pace. The University of
Pennsylvania, Harvard, Duke, and others are conducting

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