Bristol Myers Squibb was the first major biopharma company to take notice of innovative cell therapy contract manufacturer Cellares, participating in a $255 million series C funding round in August of last year.
Eight months later, BMS has expanded its partnership with the five-year-old South San Francisco company, signing a $380 million deal to reserve CAR-T manufacturing space.
The agreement, which includes upfront and future milestone payments, gives BMS exclusive access to an unspecified number of Cellares’ compact automated cell therapy manufacturing units in the United States, Europe and Japan. It will allow BMS to expand its capacity to produce potential CAR-T blockbusters Breyanzi and Abecma, as well as potential future candidates.
Launch of BMS’s two blood cancer CAR-T therapies—which were both approved in 2021—has been plagued by production and capacity issues.
“Our collaboration with Cellares strengthens our existing internal manufacturing capabilities for CAR-T cell therapies by giving us access to the first end-to-end fully automated cell therapy manufacturing platform, to help ensure we meet the high demand for these differentiated treatments, now and in the future,” Lynelle Hoch, BMS’s cell therapy chief, said in a release.
The announcement comes four days after Cellares launched Cell Q, which the company touted as the world’s first automated quality control work unit for cell therapy manufacturing. Cell Q is designed to handle 6,000 cell therapy batches per year, matching the throughput of the company’s Cell Shuttle platform, providing clients with end-to-end production.
Cellares, which has dubbed itself the world’s first integrated development and manufacturing organization (IDMO), has a setup that allows it to produce cell therapy batches with 90% less labor and facility space than conventional CDMOs, with a 50% lower batch price.
Cellares expects to open factories this year in South San Francisco and Bridgewater, New Jersey, with future expansion planned for Europe and Japan. BMS is headquartered 20 miles south of Bridgewater in Princeton, New Jersey.
“This agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb is aligned with our strategy of establishing a global network of high-throughput, automated smart factories to meet the growing and worldwide demand for cell therapies,” Fabian Gerlinghaus, CEO and co-founder of Cellares, said. “We look forward to demonstrating how our innovative technology’s emphasis on standardization will accelerate commercial-scale manufacturing and worldwide deployment.”
Seven months ago, Cellares revealed it had partnered with Lyell Immunopharma on a proof-of-concept technology transfer for the manufacture of its LYL797 cell therapy to treat solid tumors. In addition to its initial investment in Cellares, BMS has tapped the upstart to perform proof-of-concept manufacturing for one of its three CAR-T candidates in its pipeline.