Cytiva’s support will enable Caring Cross to develop and distribute its CAR-T cell therapy for HIV to low-to-middle-income countries, says firm.
Caring Cross’ first therapeutic candidate is an anti-HIV duoCAR-T cell therapy, which the organization claims is designed to supress HIV replication and remove HIV-expressing cells in individuals with HIV. Additionally, it is developing a stem cell gene therapy for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia.
“Approximately 38 million people worldwide are living with HIV. Current treatment options are limited to long-term drug regimens, which are not curative nor are they readily available in underserved communities. We have developed an anti-HIV duoCAR-T cell therapy that’s currently being evaluated in a Phase I/II clinical trial at the University of California, San Francisco, and Davis,” said Boro Dropulić, Caring Cross’ co-founder and executive director.
DepositPhotos/roobcio
“Our collaboration with Cytiva will allow us to overcome some current limitations in the manufacturing workflows used for place-of-care manufacturing. Ultimately, this partnership will result in a lower cost of goods and reduced manufacturing times, which will accelerate the development of future therapies.”
Cytiva will provide equipment and software packages to Caring Cross, including the Sepax C-Pro, which is a place of care instrument with the ability to automatically isolate, concentrate, clean and dilute cellular products and in turn decrease the processing times related to CAR-T production.
“The Sepax C-Pro cell processing system is an automated and functionally closed technology for cell processing when developing and manufacturing cell therapy products,” a spokesperson for Cytiva told BioProcess Insider.
Furthermore, its VIA Thaw and VIA Freeze technology will also be given to Caring Cross. Cytiva claims that both instruments have been developed to streamline the freezing and thawing process in order to advance efficiency and reduce contamination risks associated with traditional methods like water baths.
While Cytiva would not disclose financial details associated with this deal, it did confirm that this is a multi-year partnership.
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