Cell therapy weekly: BlueRock and bit.bio join forces for iPSC-derived immune solutions
This week: SCG Cell Therapy (Singapore) opened a new cell therapy manufacturing facility at its headquarters, Kyverna Therapeutics (CA, USA) closed its oversubscribed Series B financing round and BlueRock Therapeutics (MA, USA) and bit.bio (Cambridge, UK) announced a research collaboration for iPSC-derived immune solutions.
The news highlights:
- SCG Cell Therapy unveils cutting-edge manufacturing facility
- Kyverna extends Series B financing round to US$145 million
- BlueRock and bit.bio join forces for iPSC-derived immune solutions
SCG Cell Therapy unveils cutting-edge manufacturing facility
SCG Cell Therapy celebrated the opening of its state-of-the-art cell therapy manufacturing facility at its headquarters in Singapore, boasting a first-of-its-kind automatic manufacturing system. This facility will expand the company’s cell therapy manufacturing capabilities and utilize its off-the-shelf iPSC technology to supply cell therapy products to partner hospitals across Asia Pacific, North America and Europe.
Christy Ma, Chief Strategy Officer of SCG Cell Therapy stated: “This advanced cell therapy manufacturing system reduces the amount of required cleanroom space by 80% per patient compared with manual manufacturing methods. It eliminates labor-intensive procedures and improves throughput by a factor of ten. Overall, it is expected to reduce the per-patient manufacturing cost by up to 70%, making cell therapy an assessable and affordable treatment option for patients.”
Kyverna extends Series B financing round to US$145 million
A cell therapy company focusing on the regenerative treatment of serious autoimmune diseases, Kyverna Therapeutics, closed its oversubscribed $60 million Series B financing round extension, bringing the total raised in Series B financing to $145 million. Existing investors were joined by Bain Capital Life Sciences (MA, USA) and GordonMD Global Investments (CA, USA). The funding will support the clinical development of novel fully human anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapies for autoimmune diseases.
Ryan Jones, Chief Financial Officer of Kyverna, stated: “This Series B extension will fund Kyverna’s clinical studies in the US and Europe, enabling us to move more quickly toward bringing potentially transformative and life-saving therapies to patients. We continue to treat autoimmune patients in multiple indications and multiple geographies, and we look forward to sharing clinical data in the second half of 2023.”
BlueRock and bit.bio join forces for iPSC-derived immune solutions
BlueRock Therapeutics and bit.bio announced a research collaboration and option agreement for the discovery and manufacture of iPSC-derived therapeutic regulatory T cells (Tregs). The collaboration will utilize bit.bio’s machine-learning-powered discovery platform to identify transcription factor combinations that can reprogram iPSCs into Tregs. The agreement gives BlueRock the option to license bit.bio’s opti-ox precision cell programming technology to control the expression of transcription factor combinations within Treg cell therapies.
“Tregs play a crucial role in maintaining balance in the body’s immune system and controlling excessive immune reactions,” said Stefan Irion, Chief Scientific Officer of BlueRock Therapeutics. “iPSC-derived Treg based therapies have the potential to treat a broad range of autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, and we look forward to collaborating with the bit.bio team to explore how their opti-ox cell programming technology can accelerate our efforts to discover and manufacture Tregs from iPSCs.”
