Portal Biotechnologies and Multiply Labs Announce Partnership to Automate Cell Engineering In Cell Therapy Manufacturing
May 21 2024 - 9:05AM
Business Wire
Automating Portal’s cell engineering platform
using Multiply Labs’ robotic systems aims to reduce costs and
accelerate timelines, in support of cell therapy scalability and
accessibility
Multiply Labs and Portal Biotechnologies announced their
collaboration today, combining the efficiency of Multiply Labs’
robotic automation with the differentiated cell engineering
capabilities of the Portal platform. This collaboration is an
important step forward for cell therapy development and
manufacturing with the goal of leveraging automation to accelerate
product timelines and reduce costs, helping innovative cell
therapies reach more patients.
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Photo of Multiply Labs robotic systems
(Photo: Multiply Labs)
“Cell therapy manufacturing infrastructure and its associated
costs have severely limited the accessibility of cell therapies.
Multiply Labs’ automation strategy has the potential to modularize
and simplify cell therapy production to ensure greater patient
impact. We are very excited to contribute to the Multiply Labs
team’s vision by integrating our next generation cell engineering
approach with their robotics,” said Armon Sharei, Founder and CEO
of Portal.
Portal’s mechanoporation technology has demonstrated the
capability to deliver many different types of cargo to a broad
range of cell types while preserving normal cell function. By
enabling robust multiplexed engineering of cells, this approach can
enable a broad range of novel cell therapies. This partnership will
add automation support for Portal’s platform and overall approach
to intracellular delivery, improving efficiency, throughput, and
speed, while reducing the risk of human error. The companies aim to
develop a Robotic Mechanoporation Cartridge that will contain
Portal’s hardware consumable kit, enabling Multiply Labs’ robotic
systems to autonomously operate Portal’s mechanoporation
technology.
“We are honored to welcome Portal Biotechnologies into our
industry-leading partner ecosystem,” said Fred Parietti, PhD,
Co-Founder and CEO of Multiply Labs. “It is crucial that we partner
with companies like Portal, who are on the cutting edge of drug
discovery and cellular therapeutics, to support their scalability
through automation. Together, we are primed to address some of the
largest barriers that exist in cell therapy today, ensuring future
patients can benefit from the life-saving potential of these
treatments.”
Multiply Labs’ automation technology for cell therapy
manufacturing is a unique approach that is based on being
compatible with the leading GMP-grade instruments, consumables, and
reagents. In support of this strategy, Multiply Labs recently
published pre-print data demonstrating that automated and manual
cell expansion processes are statistically equivalent. This implies
that manufacturers can automate their current cell expansion
protocols with minimal alterations and reduced regulatory risk.
Many stakeholders in the cell therapy space will benefit from
this collaboration by integrating Portal’s cutting-edge solutions
while enjoying the advantages of automation, such as cost reduction
and increased throughput.
About Portal Biotechnologies:
Portal is a cell engineering platform company focused on
enabling next generation cell engineering and cell analytics across
research and clinical applications. The company is implementing a
simplified approach to intracellular delivery, focused on
accelerating advances enabled by the new generation of RNA, gene
editing, and AI-driven technologies. Portal’s initial product suite
is based on a proprietary mechanical delivery system capable of
delivering many different types of cargo to a broad range of cell
types. The technology's ability to be used stand-alone or as an
integrated component of third-party systems provides a significant
opportunity to broadly impact the fields of biological research and
cellular therapeutics. For more information, please visit
www.portal.bio.
About Multiply Labs
Multiply Labs is a robotics company that provides autonomous
manufacturing technology to the pharmaceutical industry. The
company develops advanced, cloud-controlled robotic systems that
enable the production of individualized drugs at scale. Its
customers include some of the largest global organizations in the
advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing space. Multiply Labs’
expertise is at the intersection of robotics and biopharma – its
team includes mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, computer
scientists, software engineers and pharmaceutical scientists. The
founding team got in touch because of their shared love of robots
at MIT. The company is based in San Francisco, California. For more
information, please visit www.multiplylabs.com.
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Portal Biotechnologies Elizabeth Kennedy
elizabeth@portal.bio
Multiply Labs Marae Hartwell press@multiplylabs.com