Cellular Origins and Fresenius Kabi have signed a cell and gene therapy (CGT) development agreement.
The initiative aims to assist CGT developers in manufacturing their therapies at scale, while also optimising the process.
Through the agreement, Fresenius Kabi will incorporate Cellular Origins' automated CGT platform, Constellation into its Cue Cell Processing System.
With the full automation of Fresenius Kabi's system, the company will create a solution that can fully automate the CGT manufacturing process, allowing for 24/7, scaled manufacturing.
This also allows manufacturers to optimise the use of their space, while streamlining processes and minimising the number of personnel needing to be present.
Cue was selected by the pharmaceutical company because of its flexible design, and is suitable for a wide range of applications, including final formulation and culture media exchange.
The technology also reduces the prevalence of human error in the CGT manufacturing process.
Fresenius Kabi's President of MedTech, Dr Christian Hauer, commented: “For Fresenius Kabi, automation is crucial to addressing some of the biggest research and manufacture challenges in our industry. This is a major reason for our collaboration with Cellular Origins,”
“Our cell therapy technologies are designed with automation at their core, to provide new levels of precision and efficiency. By working closely with the team at Cellular Origins, we hope to advance the CGT industry by helping therapy developers embrace automation during the production process with the goal of ultimately benefitting patients.”
CEO of Cellular Origins, Dr Edwin Stone, commented: “Cellular Origins has developed Constellation to enable fully industrialised manufacture of cell and gene therapies,”
“Forming strong collaborations is essential to ensuring the industry can implement the transformative power of automation whilst using the tools that are best for the biology and, therefore, for patients. Fresenius Kabi is an industry-leading developer of automated technologies to support the production of cell therapies. This is why we are working closely with their team to unlock the power of automation throughout the entire manufacturing process, with the goal of bringing life-saving therapies to patients, faster and more affordably.”