ARPA‑H awarded BioCurie up to $9.3 million to develop an AI‑powered digital platform intended to speed and standardize gene therapy process development across viral and non‑viral manufacturing. The grant funds a consortium including Caring Cross, St. Jude, and the Center for Breakthrough Medicines to integrate modeling, machine learning and real‑world manufacturing data to reduce optimization cycles and de‑risk scale‑up. BioCurie CEO Irene Rombel framed the project as replacing trial‑and‑error process development with predictive simulations to lower costs and shorten timelines. One‑sentence clarification: process development in gene therapy typically involves empirical optimization of production, purification and analytical steps that are costly and slow to iterate. Why it matters: addressing manufacturing bottlenecks with data‑centric automation could increase clinical supply reliability, lower COGS, and accelerate patient access to curative genomic medicines.