TAP Biosystems in Cambridge is collaborating with a major regenerative medicine company to develop a custom manufacturing system to ensure the consistent quality of the customer’s innovative cell-based therapy.

The automation will control incubation plus media addition and media decanting to provide an aseptically controlled, GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) compliant production line.

The final system will enable increased throughput and – because operator intervention is minimised – will also reduce contamination risks and ensure cell therapy consistency.

Nick Cooke, COO at TAP Biosystems said: “To continue to meet patient and regulatory demands, our customer is constructing an advanced cell therapy manufacturing facility.

“At the heart of this, they require a custom system for clinical production and were looking for a company with proven experience so approached TAP Biosystems.  We have a long history of automating cell therapy manufacturing, going back to Cellmate over 20 years ago.

“One of our core competences is providing engineering solutions for the challenges associated with reliable and consistent scale-up of cell lines for use in laboratory and clinical applications.

“We are delighted to use this skill set to design and develop automation which will help deliver this regenerative medicine firm’s advanced cell therapies to a wider patient population.”

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Nick Cooke, COO at TAP Biosystems, who led the project to design and develop an automated system for manufacturing the cell therapy