As Dan Stanton covered in BioProcess International last week(1) , and Jayne Bryne addressed in BioPharma Reporter(2), the launch of Excellos now brings scientific and cell manipulation expertise to support the development of investigational cell therapy products through to commercialization, by leveraging the San Diego Blood Bank (SDBB) and its network of collection centers.
The Cell Therapy and Gene Therapy Industries has seen huge and sustained levels of growth in the last decade with 2,648 clinical trials on-going worldwide in 2021, according to the Association for Regenerative Medicine (ARM) (3,4) and Global Data, including 243 new therapeutics in Phase 3. The total number of developers has increased 23% in the US since 2018, and 119% in the Asia Pacific region, while remaining fairly static in Europe. This dramatic growth is driving a huge surge in the demand for, and complexity of, the critical human cells and tissues required by the industry in order to support research, development, and commercialization of new products. Therefore, for us, there could not be a better time to expand and officially launch.
For the last 7 years, “Excellos” has been running a fully operational cGMP manufacturing facility for Advanced Therapies inside the San Diego Blood Bank and has already developed a number of CGT products and services. Excellos can offer everything from the recruitment of donors, blood and apheresis collections, cell isolation and purification, cell transduction, cell expansion, and final fill and finish under cGMP standards. Excellos is also already providing leukapheresis-derived PBMC feeder cells to support TIL therapies and, of course, plan to expand offerings in the CAR-T and Immunotherapy space.
With 15M secured from Telegraph Hill Partners, CCO of Excellos, George Eastwood explained that Excellos would use the capital “to expand our analytical and technological capabilities, while building at least 4 additional cGMP suites. This will allow us to fulfill our vision of enabling allogenic therapies through the advanced functional characterization of donors, while providing the data and technological integration necessary to set new standards for the next generation of advanced therapies”
Standing Out in the Cell Therapy Space
What makes Excellos unique and stand out from other players in the Cell Therapy and Gene Therapy CDMO space is that they are intimately connected to an almost unlimited supply of biospecimens and raw starting material for the development of cell, gene and immunotherapies. Excellos pairs this extraordinary resource with deep characterization, both of the donor and of the isolated cellular product (functionally and metabolically), ultimately accelerating therapeutic development.
CEO of Excellos, David Wellis states “A CDMO that provides characterization across the continuum is a unique offering that we believe will optimize the manufacturing of more effective therapies. Offering this combination of resources to early-stage companies will enable them to move to the clinic and early-stage trials faster than ever before.”
At Excellos, our goal is to facilitate the advancement of cellular therapies and help fully realize the potential of these powerful therapeutics, saving lives today and improving life tomorrow. Contact us to learn more.
References
- https://bioprocessintl.com/bioprocess-insider/therapeutic-class/excellos-there-is-no-better-time-to-enter-cell-therapy-cdmo-space/
- https://www.biopharma-reporter.com/Article/2022/01/31/New-cell-therapy-focused-CDMO-has-San-Diego-blood-bank-origins
- BioPharma Reporter. Special Edition: Reviewing the Advanced Therapy Pipeline. 01 Sept 2021
- Alliance for Regenerative Medicine. Report H1 2021: A Year of Records and Firsts
