PBMC Collection Services
PBMC Collection Services
Custom PBMC Collection Services for Clinical Studies
Reduce variability risk in your PBMC studies - before it reaches the bench.
Donor variability is the most common, and most expensive failure mode in PBMC-dependent research. A cohort that doesn't match your protocol on disease state, treatment history, or demographics doesn't just slow down a study; it compromises the data you're using to make go/no-go decisions on therapeutic candidates.
Sanguine builds custom PBMC cohorts to your exact specifications, sourced from a network of verified-condition donors and delivered with the integrated clinical and demographic data your team needs to interpret results with confidence. Whether you're running an immuno-oncology screen or building a rare-disease biomarker panel, we tailor the donor profile, collection method, and processing pipeline to your protocol - not the other way around.
What makes a "custom" PBMC cohort?
A custom PBMC cohort is one where every donor and every aliquot is sourced and processed against criteria you define, rather than pulled from off-the-shelf inventory. At Sanguine, that typically means specifying:
Disease state and severity
Verified through medical records review, not donor self-report.
Treatment status
Treatment-naïve, on a specific therapy, post-treatment, or in remission.
Demographics
Age range, sex, race/ethnicity, BMI, comorbidities.
Biomarker profile
HLA type, mutation status, expression markers, serology.
Collection parameters
Volume, anticoagulant, processing time-to-freeze, viability thresholds.
Longitudinal cadence
Single timepoint, paired samples, or repeat draws over months.
The result is a cohort that minimizes variability and maximizes the signal your assay is designed to detect.
How Sanguine sources verified-condition donors
Most PBMC suppliers rely on commercial blood centers, where donor selection is limited to whatever walks through the door. We built Sanguine differently.
Our donor network is composed of individuals who have signed up specifically to contribute biospecimens to research, and who have consented to share medical record data. That structure gives us three advantages that translate directly into better PBMCs for your study:
Condition verification through medical records
When a donor reports a diagnosis, we confirm it against their EHR before they're eligible for a study. This means that a "treatment-naïve metastatic NSCLC" cohort actually contains individuals who meet that definition.
In-home and clinic-based collection
The majority of our collections happen in the donor's home, which dramatically widens the geographic pool and lets us recruit people who would never travel to a fixed collection site. For rare diseases, this is often the only way to assemble a cohort at all.
Longitudinal access
Because donors are part of an ongoing network, we can return to the same individuals for paired baseline/on-treatment samples or extended follow-up without rebuilding consent each time.
Our network includes over 70,000 consented individuals with verified coverage of 150+ conditions.
What you can customize
| Specification | Options |
|---|---|
| Donor profile | Disease state, treatment history, biomarker status, demographics, HLA type |
| Sample type | Fresh PBMCs, cryopreserved PBMCs, paired plasma/serum, whole blood |
| Cells per donor | 5M to 2B cells/donor |
| Processing | Density gradient, custom isolation protocols |
| Cryopreservation | DMSO/serum, DMSO-free, controlled-rate freezing, vapor-phase storage |
Integrated donor data - included, not extra
Every PBMC sample we deliver ships with structured donor metadata so your team isn't reverse-engineering context from a vial label.
For studies that need it, we also support deeper EHR pulls, longitudinal patient-reported outcomes, and integration with your LIMS or analysis platform.
Standard data package
- Demographics and consent status
- Verified diagnosis
- Current and historical medications
- Relevant lab values from the donor's medical record
- Collection-day questionnaire responses
- Sample handling chain-of-custody (collection-to-freeze time, processing site, lot)
Use cases
PBMC collections for oncology trials
For immuno-oncology programs, the value of a PBMC cohort lives in the specificity of the donor selection. We routinely build cohorts for:
- Solid-tumor indications stratified by stage, mutation status, and prior therapy
- Treatment-naïve baseline cohorts paired with on-treatment timepoints
- CAR-T and TIL development programs requiring high-volume leukopaks from healthy or patient donors
- Biomarker discovery panels with matched tumor and peripheral samples
- Pharmacodynamic studies requiring serial bleeds over weeks or months
Because we verify diagnosis and treatment status against medical records, your "post-checkpoint-inhibitor" cohort isn't contaminated by patients whose treatment history was misremembered or self-reported in error.
PBMC collections for rare disease research
Rare-disease cohorts are the hardest to assemble - and the area where most off-the-shelf vendors simply can't help. Sanguine's patient-recruited network and in-home collection model make us a natural fit when your protocol calls for:
- Ultra-rare indications with prevalence below 1 in 50,000
- Geographically distributed collection across multiple states
- Patients on highly specific genetic, autoimmune, or metabolic-disease registries
- Family/proband studies requiring relative-paired samples
How Sanguine compares to other PBMC suppliers
When biopharma teams evaluate PBMC sourcing partners, the criteria that actually predict study success aren't price-per-vial. Use this checklist when you're comparing vendors - including us.
| Criterion | Why it matters | What to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Donor verification method | Self-reported diagnoses introduce silent variability. | "How do you confirm the donor's stated condition?" |
| Network model | Walk-in blood centers can't deliver rare-disease or longitudinal cohorts. | "Are donors recruited and retained, or sourced one-time?" |
| Geographic reach | Single-site networks miss patients who can't travel. | "Can you collect at the donor's home?" |
| Data integration | A vial without context is a sample of unknown clinical relevance. | "What clinical and demographic metadata ships with each sample?" |
| Customization depth | Off-the-shelf inventory rarely matches a real protocol. | "What variables can I specify, and which are fixed?" |
| Longitudinal access | Treatment-effect studies need the same donor across timepoints. | "Can you recall the same donor 3 months from now?" |
| Regulatory rigor | Consents and CoCs must hold up to FDA/EMA scrutiny. | "Can you share a sample IRB protocol and donor consent?" |
Frequently asked questions
What does Sanguine's PBMC collection service include?
How does Sanguine reduce donor variability in PBMC collections?
Can Sanguine collect PBMCs from rare-disease patients?
What's a typical timeline for a custom PBMC cohort?
Can I get paired baseline and on-treatment PBMC samples from the same donor?
How do I share study specifications with Sanguine?
Ready to design your cohort?
Tell us what your protocol needs. We'll come back with a feasibility assessment, including donor availability, timeline, and pricing.