Kite Pharma, a Gilead Company, has announced plans to evaluate Cellares’ automated manufacturing platform, the Cell Shuttle. The data generated in this proof-of-concept evaluation will be utilized to assess viability of the Cell Shuttle as a future manufacturing option for Kite.

“This agreement with Kite allows the unique capabilities of our Cell Shuttle platform to be potentially utilized by Kite in the future and reinforces Cellares’ position as a cell therapy manufacturer with advanced automated technology,” said Fabian Gerlinghaus, CEO and Co-Founder of Cellares. “We aim to fully automate all cell therapy manufacturing processes, moving us closer to delivering CAR T-cell therapies for a wide range of autoimmune diseases and cancers. We are honored to work with an industry leader such as Kite, that already is serving patients worldwide with two commercially approved cell therapies.”

“Given that manufacturing is central to how we deliver CAR T-cell therapies to physicians and patients, we are always assessing what technologies could further enhance our best-in-class manufacturing capabilities,” said Chris McDonald, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Technical Operations, Kite. “We welcome this opportunity to evaluate Cellares’ automation production platform for how it potentially could help us reach even more patients with our next-generation therapies.”