South San Francisco, CA — Cellares and GenomeFrontier Therapeutics have entered into a partnership to evaluate automated manufacturing for GF-CART01, GenomeFrontier’s investigational CAR-T cell therapy, using Cellares’ Cell Shuttle platform.
The collaboration will assess the transfer of GenomeFrontier’s virus-free manufacturing process to the Cell Shuttle, with a focus on supporting transfection through Cellares’ integrated electroporator. The agreement marks Cellares’ first development collaboration with a cell therapy company in Asia and is intended to support GenomeFrontier’s U.S. clinical program.
GenomeFrontier is developing GF-CART01 for B-cell malignancies, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, follicular lymphoma, primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma and high-grade B-cell lymphoma. The company is also recruiting patients for a Phase 1 clinical trial in the United States.
“As we advance GF-CART01, it is important that our manufacturing strategy can support both clinical development and future scale,” said Sareina Wu, Ph.D., Founder, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of GenomeFrontier. “Our virus-free approach is central to the development of GF-CART01, and this collaboration with Cellares allows us to evaluate how that process can be translated to an automated manufacturing platform as we expand our clinical development in the United States.”
Fabian Gerlinghaus, Co-Founder and CEO of Cellares, said the company’s Cell Shuttle platform is designed to automate complex cell therapy manufacturing workflows, including electroporation-based processes.
“GenomeFrontier’s virus-free approach reflects the increasing complexity of next-generation cell therapy manufacturing,” Gerlinghaus said. “The Cell Shuttle is built to automate complex processes, including electroporation-based workflows, with the scalability and reliability needed as therapies advance through clinical development.”
The companies said the collaboration will evaluate whether GenomeFrontier’s manufacturing process can be automated on the Cell Shuttle while preserving the flexibility required for its virus-free approach.
Cellares and GenomeFrontier aim to establish a manufacturing strategy designed to improve reliability, reduce manufacturing costs and support broader patient access as GF-CART01 advances through clinical development.
