Fresenius Kabi and TQ Therapeutics have announced that they have entered into a strategic-development agreement under which Fresenius Kabi has an exclusive license to develop, manufacture and distribute products that incorporate TQ Therapeutics’ proprietary cell selection technology.
The goal of the agreement is to advance cell and gene therapy accessibility by enabling scalable and efficient cell therapy manufacturing.
Fresenius Kabi is a leading provider of essential medicines and medical technologies and TQ Therapeutics specialises in proprietary cell selection technology and the following therapeutic applications.
Under the agreement, TQ Therapeutics’ affinity and column-based cell isolation technology will be integrated into Fresenius Kabi’s Cue Cell Processing System.
By combining these technologies, the companies aim to create an automated and robust system that can isolate T cells from whole blood and aphaeresis products in less than two hours for cell and gene therapy manufacturing applications.
The goal is to quickly, easily and consistently produce high-purity T cells, helping therapeutic developers work more efficiently and potentially bring treatments to patients faster.
"With this collaboration, we are reinforcing our commitment to innovation in cell and gene therapy technology," said Saurabh Bhasin, Head of Portfolio, Cell Therapies & Contract Manufacturing Operations at Fresenius Kabi.
"By integrating TQ Therapeutics’ novel selection technology into our Cue system, we aim to improve manufacturing success and scalability — key steps toward supporting the advancement of cell and gene therapies."
TQ Therapeutics’ goal is to leverage the Cue system and its integrated cell selection column technology to develop extracorporeal, ultra-short cell and gene therapy processes for clinical applications.
This should create faster steps that can be performed closer to the point of care to help simplify and accelerate treatment workflows.
"This agreement with Fresenius Kabi allows us to bring our proprietary technology to a broader audience to accelerate the development of next-generation cell therapies," said Christian Eckert, CEO of TQ Therapeutics.
"With Fresenius Kabi’s expertise in cell and gene therapy device technologies development and commercialisation and TQ Therapeutics' focus on developing ultra-short processes for clinical cell therapies from manufacturing to in vivo applications, we are creating a novel value proposition for scaling and enabling the supply of cell therapies for broader patient populations."