Cell therapy weekly: Exogene secures $2 million to advance its AI platform for solid-tumor cancer cell therapies
This week: Exogene secures $2 million to advance its AI platform for solid-tumor cancer cell therapies, Ncardia launches Cellistic™ to advance large-scale allogeneic cell therapy production and Olympus separates from Evident.
The news highlights:
Exogene secures $2 million to advance its AI platform for solid-tumor cancer cell therapies
Exogene (Oxford, UK), a biotechnology company dedicated to the discovery of novel T cell therapies for solid tumor cancers, has recently announced that they have secured US$2 million in funding. The funds will be used produce a core wet-lab dataset to train Exogene’s AI platform, expand the platform to power the discovery of T-cell-receptor-based cancer immunotherapies.
Some patients naturally produce cancer-recognizing T cells, however, they are rare and issues with scalability mean they are hard to identify within a population. Exogene’s platform combines AI with novel high-throughput screening capabilities in the lab to create a scalable screening platform to identify rare natural T cell receptors (TCRs) in patients, which can then be utilized in cell therapy treatments.
“Our AI platform allows us to screen billions of TCRs in a matter of seconds, overcoming the scalability problem of existing wet-lab technologies. We are delighted with the result of this fundraising round which allows us to strengthen our high-throughput wet-lab TCR screening capabilities, and we are grateful to all our investors for their continued interest and support. This investment brings us one step closer to our goal of identifying new safe and effective cell therapies that will radically improve patient lives,” commented Frederico Paeoletti, co-founder and CEO of Exogene.
Ncardia launches Cellistic™ to advance large-scale allogeneic cell therapy production
Ncardia (Gosselies, Belgium) has announced the launch of Cellistic™ (Gosselies, Belgium), a contract development and manufacturing organization focused on the development of cell therapies derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. Cellistic™ aims to bring scalable, industry-ready processes to the cell therapy community, with the combination of induced pluripotent stem cell-based development expertise and dedicated resources and capabilities to the technology. The company intend to address unmet needs in the industry, such as providing immediate access to a range of bioreactor-based expansion protocols, scalable cGMP capacity, clinical readiness support for global regulatory submissions and analytical support.
“What has hindered the ongoing evolution of cell-based therapies is the reliance on slower, more expensive, one-batch-per-patient autologous approaches and scale-limited manufacturing processes. For more than a decade, we have been working to develop the scientific, technological and large-scale allogeneic manufacturing capabilities whose time has come,” stated Stefan Braam, CEO and CSO of Ncardia.
Olympus separates from Evident
Olympus (Tokyo, Japan) has recently announced its entire separation from Evident (Tokyo, Japan), its scientific solutions business with a focus on supplying advanced solutions to the life sciences community. The split aims to distinguish Evident as an independent company operating under the Olympus umbrella, allowing them greater management autonomy to promote agile product development and innovation. The news solidifies Olympus’ place in the medtech and life sciences industry.
“Evident, while continuing to provide best-in-class products, will expand its digital and cloud-based solutions to enhance the customer experience and to improve the overall workflow in the research and inspection fields. We will shift from a business model centered on the sale of products, to one focused on solving customer issues and challenges. With this greater management autonomy, we will promote agile product development and open innovation, which we believe will increase the speed of product development,” commented Yoshitake Saito, President and Representative Director of Evident.
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