With the power of robotics and the personalized medicine expertise of one of Japan's top drugmakers, Astellas Pharma and Yaskawa Electric Corporation are setting off on a joint venture to help streamline the infamously tricky process of cell therapy manufacturing.
Astellas and Yaskawa have formalized a development deal signed last year that will see the two Japanese companies invest a combined 4.5 billion Japanese yen ($30.4 million) to develop an automated cell therapy production system.
The partners, which have been working together since 2017, laid the groundwork for the new collaboration in May 2024.
The goal is to use a dual-arm robot dubbed Maholo, developed by Yaskawa subsidiary Robotic Biology Institute, to create a new cell therapy manufacturing platform aimed at linking early-stage research and eventual commercialization, the companies said in a March 5 press release.
The joint venture, which has yet to be named, is expected to be established in September under a capital structure split 60% and 40% between Astellas and Yaskawa, respectively. Astellas and Yaskawa are pitching their eventual automated platform at startups and academic institutions.
Once the platform is up and running, Astellas and Yaskawa say they will help academic and early-stage partners develop bespoke manufacturing processes for their cell therapy candidates and assist with production of those assets in licensed facilities.
Cell therapies are infamous for their complex manufacturing processes, especially with regards to commercial reproducibility. Production issues have struck many personalized medicine players and prompted some to take manufacturing in-house.
Meanwhile, the growth in the industry's cell therapy pipeline has spurred a rush into the market for automated manufacturing processes. In September, robotics specialist Multiply Labs and Legend Biotech, which is part of the team behind the multiple myeloma CAR-T Carvykti, signed a partnership deal to automate cell therapy production.
Earlier in 2024, Bristol Myers Squibb paid $380 million to Cellares in a deal to reserve CAR-T manufacturing space with the South San Francisco company. In addition, Thermo Fisher Scientific expanded its own partnership with Multiply Labs to further automate the cell therapy production process.