Cellares, an integrated development and manufacturing organization (IDMO) (South San Francisco, CA) and cancer research and treatment organization City of Hope (Los Angeles, CA) have announced a collaboration to evaluate automated manufacturing of City of Hope’s investigational gene-modified CAR T cell therapy targeting glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive solid tumor brain cancer with limited treatment options.*
City of Hope is a leader in CAR T for glioblastoma and was the first to administer CAR T cell therapy locally in the brain through direct injection to the tumor site. City of Hope has deep expertise in developing gene-modified cell therapies for solid tumors and translating those discoveries into new treatments at lifesaving speeds. Its CARpool program, an IL13RA2-EGFR targeting CAR T cell therapy, targets glioblastoma, a disease with an estimated global incidence of approximately 300,000 new diagnoses annually.
Under the collaboration, City of Hope will evaluate Cellares’ Cell Shuttle™ automated manufacturing platform and Cell Q™ automated quality control system to enable reliable, high-throughput manufacturing and quality control of its CARpool program. By engaging at the preclinical stage, the collaboration will establish platform processes and analytics purpose-built for solid tumor CAR T programs, accelerating advancement into clinical trials while enabling scalable manufacturing to meet global patient demand.
“Glioblastoma remains one of the most challenging solid tumors to treat due to its highly immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, antigen heterogeneity and limited persistence of engineered T cells,” said Christine Brown, Ph.D., deputy director of the T Cell Therapeutics Research Laboratories at City of Hope. “Advancing CAR T therapies in this setting requires not only rigorous translational science but also highly controlled and reproducible manufacturing. We are excited to incorporate automation early in development to standardize processes and analytics, enabling the consistency required for effective clinical translation.”
“Manual, fragmented manufacturing and quality control cannot meet the scale required for large solid tumor patient populations,” said Fabian Gerlinghaus, co-founder and chief executive officer of Cellares. “By collaborating with City of Hope, we will remove these bottlenecks through automation, enabling reproducible manufacturing, lowering failure rates, and expanding patient access at commercial scale.”
* City of Hope licensed the IL13-CAR technology to Mustang Bio Inc. City of Hope is entitled to royalties from and holds equity in the company. Dr. Brown is an inventor of the technology, is entitled to a portion of the royalties and holds equity in the company.
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