Cellares, GenomeFrontier Partner on Automated CAR-T Manufacturing

Cellares expands automated cell therapy manufacturing to Asia

Cellares has announced its first development project in Asia through a collaboration with GenomeFrontier Therapeutics to evaluate automated manufacturing for the investigational CAR-T cell therapy GF-CART01. The partnership will assess whether GenomeFrontier's virus-free manufacturing process can be adapted to Cellares' Cell Shuttle automation platform.

The collaboration aims to support GenomeFrontier's clinical development activities for GF-CART01 in the United States. The therapy targets multiple B-cell malignancies, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, follicular lymphoma, high-grade B-cell lymphoma, and primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma. GF-CART01 has already demonstrated positive clinical trial results in Taiwan, and patient enrollment continues for a Phase I trial in the U.S.

Technical focus on transfection automation

The evaluation will center on translating GenomeFrontier's manufacturing technique to the Cell Shuttle system, with particular emphasis on transfection operations using Cellares' integrated electroporator. The companies seek to determine whether automation can be achieved while preserving the flexibility required by GenomeFrontier's virus-free approach.

"As we advance GF-CART01, it is important that our manufacturing strategy can support both clinical development and future scale," said Sareina Wu, GenomeFrontier's founder, CEO, and chief scientific officer.

Fabian Gerlinghaus, co-founder and CEO of Cellares, noted that GenomeFrontier's virus-free method represents the growing complexity of next-generation cell therapy manufacturing. "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," Gerlinghaus said.

Why it matters

Autologous CAR-T production remains labor-intensive, variable, and difficult to scale—factors that directly impact manufacturing reliability, cost structures, and ultimately patient access to these potentially life-saving therapies. Automation platforms like Cell Shuttle represent a critical pathway to making personalized cell therapies economically viable at scale. Success in adapting virus-free manufacturing processes to automated systems could accelerate both clinical development timelines and commercial production capabilities.

Addressing manufacturing bottlenecks

Cellares designed the Cell Shuttle platform specifically to address persistent challenges in cell therapy manufacturing by automating end-to-end production processes. GenomeFrontier and Cellares intend to establish whether automated processes can effectively support virus-free approaches while enhancing reliability and reducing costs.

The collaboration marks a strategic expansion for Cellares into Asian markets and represents a test case for adapting newer, virus-free CAR-T manufacturing methods to automated platforms. The outcome could influence how next-generation cell therapies are manufactured as they progress from clinical trials to commercial production.

These details were first reported by Pharmaceutical Technology.