Astraveus has successfully completed the end-to-end production of CAR-T cells within a microfluidic benchtop system.
This is the first time that this has ever been attempted successfully, and was achieved using the company's fully automated Lakhesys Benchtop Cell Factory.
According to Astraveus, the technology can reduce the high manufacturing costs associated with CAR-T therapy production, while also increasing throughput by an order of magnitude.
The Lakhesys Benchtop Cell Factory integrates the cell therapy manufacturing process with onboard analytics, utilising advanced microfluidic technology to ensure cell quality.
It can also minimise the amount of space required to manufacture the specialist cell therapy, on top of eliminating cell stress throughout the production process.
The technology currently allows users to produce CAR-T cells in 26 hours.
CEO of Astraveus, Jérémie Laurent, commented: "We are incredibly excited to see our team’s efforts come to fruition as we prepare for the launch of the Lakhesys Benchtop Cell Factory."
"For the first time, CAR-T cells have been successfully produced using a fully automated, end-to-end microfluidic system, delivering the proof of concept for our purpose-built benchtop cell factory.
“Our approach has successfully miniaturised a hugely complex process, reducing the scale of the manufacturing system to the size of a book – less than one hundredth the size of existing technologies."
Prof Jérôme Larghero, Cell & Gene Therapies, MEARY Center, Paris, and Member of Astraveus’ Scientific Advisory Board, said: “By making its production more scalable, cheaper and decentralised, Astraveus is laying the foundation for making cell therapies the new standard of care. While this is the first step, there is huge potential for the Lakhesys Benchtop Cell Factory to transform the production of cell and gene therapies for the benefit of patients."