Xcell Bios­ciences Boosts Cell and Gene Ther­apy Col­lab­or­a­tion with Labcorp

Xcell Bios­ciences added new ele­ments to its research col­lab­or­a­tion agree­ment with Lab­corp, which will now par­ti­cip­ate in the beta pro­gram for Xcellbio’s clin­ic­al man­u­fac­tur­ing line of AVATAR™ instru­ments and has been giv­en an observ­er seat on the company’s board of directors.

In exchange, Lab­corp has increased its stra­tegic invest­ment in Xcell­bio. Fin­an­cial details of the invest­ment were not dis­closed. The com­pan­ies will be jointly present­ing res­ults from their exist­ing cell and gene ther­apy col­lab­or­a­tion at the upcom­ing annu­al meet­ing of the Amer­ic­an Asso­ci­ation for Can­cer Research (AACR) next week in San Diego.

Xcell­bio has developed the AVATAR incub­at­or sys­tem for cell ther­apy R&D. Its latest plat­form, the AVATAR Foundry sys­tem is a cGMP cell ther­apy man­u­fac­tur­ing plat­form that deliv­ers nov­el cap­ab­il­it­ies for improv­ing the potency of cell ther­apies, espe­cially for those tar­get­ing sol­id tumors, accord­ing to a spokes­per­son at Xcellbio.

Small-scale research and pro­cess development

The AVATAR and AVATAR Foundry sys­tems offer small-scale research and pro­cess devel­op­ment as well as scale-up man­u­fac­tur­ing plat­forms for meta­bol­ic­ally repro­gram­ming thera­peut­ic cells to improve their potency and per­sist­ence in the tumor microen­vir­on­ment (TME), noted Bri­an Feth, co-founder and CEO at Xcellbio.

“We have worked closely with the Xcell­bio team for years and have been con­tinu­ally impressed by their ded­ic­a­tion to improv­ing the devel­op­ment and man­u­fac­ture of cell and gene ther­apies,” added Mary­land Frank­lin, PhD, vice pres­id­ent and enter­prise head of cell and gene ther­apy at Labcorp.

“Incor­por­at­ing AVATAR tech­no­logy into Labcorp’s robust cell and gene ther­apy devel­op­ment pro­gram will allow us to deliv­er decision-enabling res­ults to our cli­ents around the world and, ulti­mately, will help us drive pre­ci­sion health­care for a broad range of patients.”

Through the expan­ded col­lab­or­a­tion, Labcorp’s pre­clin­ic­al onco­logy site in Ann Arbor, MI, will become a beta site for the AVATAR Foundry sys­tem. More inform­a­tion about the beta access pro­gram is avail­able here.

“We are proud to be a trus­ted part­ner for Lab­corp, who recog­nizes that key part­ner­ships will help unlock what’s pos­sible in the devel­op­ment of cell and gene ther­apies,” said Feth. ​“We look for­ward to deep­en­ing our ties as we con­tin­ue on our shared mis­sion of devel­op­ing safer, more effect­ive treat­ments for more patients and a wide array of diseases.”

Along with sci­entif­ic col­lab­or­at­ors at Lab­corp, Xcell team mem­bers will be present­ing recent research find­ings at the upcom­ing AACR annu­al meet­ing, tak­ing place April 5 – 10 in San Diego.