Cell therapy manufacturer Cellular Origins and clinical biopharma company Immatics have announced a new collaboration to automate parts of the manufacturing process of Immatics' immuno-oncology cell therapies.
The pair said that they hope to use automation technologies to further enable more efficient, scalable manufacturing processes for next-generation cell therapies.
Automation is increasingly recognised as an important factor in broadening the adoption of cell therapies by helping optimise manufacturing consistency, scalability and operational efficiency.
The programme is planned to be delivered in a series of defined phases and milestones, with the initial phase expected to be completed in 2026.
Under the agreement, the duo will utilise Cellular Origin's automated mobile robotic platform, Constellation, within certain parts of Immatic's manufacturing processes.
"Following the first cell therapy approvals in 2017, there has been widespread success in treating blood cancers, while progress in solid tumours has been more limited," said Edwin Stone, CEO, Cellular Origins.
"Immatics is now working to advance clinically validated approaches that could expand treatment options for these."
Current manual manufacturing methods can limit the number of patients who are able to access approved therapies. Effective cell therapies for solid-tumour patients are one of the most exciting developments in our field, but will need the manufacturing challenges to be addressed to deliver on their potential.
"Our partnership with Immatics aims to support the scalable and cost-effective manufacturing of their therapies so that more patients can potentially benefit."
"Immatics has generated extensive data demonstrating the potential of precision targeting PRAME, a target expressed in more than 50 cancers," added Ali Mohamed, SVP of CMC, Immatics.
As we continue to advance our programmes, it is important that we also develop manufacturing capabilities that can support future scale.
"We are pleased to collaborate with Cellular Origins to explore how the Constellation platform and our integrated manufacturing processes could support the scalable production of our therapies as we move toward potential approvals."