Xcell Biosciences and aCGT Vector Collaborate to Accelerate Development of Cell and Gene Therapies
Xcell Biosciences Inc. (Xcellbio), an instrumentation company focused on cell and gene therapy applications, and aCGT Vector, a point-of-care cell and gene therapy-as-a-service (TaaS) company, announced a collaboration to improve manufacturing and analytic procedures used to develop personalized cell and gene therapies for cancer patients. Through this alliance, aCGT Vector will provide its point-of-care, GMP-licensed manufacturing platform to validate Xcellbio’s core next-generation manufacturing and analytical AVATAR AI technology for use in precision cancer treatment.
“We are looking forward to working with the Xcellbio team and to utilizing the well-established AVATAR platform to further power our TaaS platform to deliver and deploy precision medicine proximal to patients,” said Gary McAuslan, CEO and co-founder of aCGT Vector. “We believe our joint efforts will further accelerate the creation of automated, end-to-end cell therapy manufacturing and QC release platforms to streamline processing and optimize patient outcomes.”
aCGT Vector’s enclosed, GMP-compliant manufacturing environment will demonstrate the use of Xcellbio’s AVATAR AI to support development and deployment of cell therapeutic procedures proximal to patients in the treatment of cancers. Through mimicking the tumor microenvironment (TME) ex vivo, AVATAR AI delivers unique capabilities to support the development of therapeutic products with improved potency and persistence as well as reduced cell exhaustion. Proprietary technology enables tight control and modulation of atmospheric pressures and oxygen concentrations in direct contact with the cell therapy product.
The AVATAR AI leverages the tight environmental control of the proven AVATAR product family, and pairs it with a specialized reader to enable real-time, label-free cell killing analysis of cell therapies targeting solid tumors. Focused on establishing next-gen immunotherapy testing workflows, the AVATAR AI system is currently in late-stage beta.
“With the tremendous promise of cell therapies and the current challenges in treating patients with solid tumors, there is more interest in both designing manufacturing conditions to optimize potency, persistence, and quality and in characterizing cell potency as a critical attribute in cell therapy manufacturing,” said Brian Feth, co-founder and CEO at Xcellbio. “We are pleased to partner with aCGT Vector and to pair their manufacturing expertise with our unique approach to measuring and improving therapeutic potency. Together, our objective is to advance the development and deployment of cell therapies, such as CAR-T and tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte technologies, to treat solid tumors. We look forward to supporting aCGT and their initiatives, including the next-generation cell therapies for the cancer-focused HEALED Consortium.”