Paris-based Astraveus SAS has entered into a strategic partnership with The Netherlands Center for the Clinical Advancement of Stem Cell and Gene Therapies (NecstGen) to evaluate its innovative Lakhesys Benchtop Cell Factory™ for manufacturing CAR-T cell therapies. The collaboration aims to demonstrate the platform's potential to significantly reduce costs and increase efficiency compared to current industry standards.
Under the agreement, NecstGen will utilize Astraveus's microfluidic technology at its state-of-the-art facility in Leiden to conduct external testing of the manufacturing platform. Additionally, NecstGen will produce lentiviral vectors for Astraveus's internal research and development needs.
Breakthrough in CAR-T Manufacturing Technology
Astraveus recently achieved a significant milestone by completing the first-ever end-to-end production of CAR-T cells within a microfluidic benchtop system. This technological breakthrough marks the beginning of the external testing phase for their manufacturing platform.
"NecstGen and Astraveus share a common passion and determination to deliver next-generation cell and gene therapies with increased accessibility and affordability," said Jérémie Laurent, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Astraveus. "This partnership enables Astraveus to carry out external system demonstrations of our disruptive Lakhesys™ platform technology in a highly collaborative and transparent manner."
The company's unique microfluidic approach has the potential to simultaneously decrease manufacturing costs while increasing process efficiency and throughput by orders of magnitude.
Addressing Critical Challenges in CAR-T Therapy
While CAR-T cell therapies have demonstrated high response rates in treating certain cancers, they face significant challenges. Current manufacturing processes often require autologous production at hospital sites, driving up costs. Additionally, these therapies frequently induce cytokine release syndrome (CRS), a potentially serious side effect.
Paul Bilars, Chief Executive Officer of NecstGen, emphasized the transformative potential of the partnership: "At NecstGen we partner with leading innovators to deliver next-generation therapeutics for patients. Astraveus's novel approach to the manufacturing of CAR-T cells represents a breakthrough technology with the ability to transform the industry by enabling the faster and cheaper development of these cutting-edge treatments."
Advancing Cell Therapy Manufacturing
Founded in 2016 by Jérémie Laurent at the Saint-Louis Hospital in Paris, Astraveus is dedicated to enhancing the quality of cell therapies while dramatically reducing costs. The company's Lakhesys Benchtop Cell Factory™ leverages cutting-edge microfluidic technology to improve process optimization and scalability from pre-clinical to commercial manufacturing.
NecstGen, a non-profit CDMO and center of excellence for Cell and Gene Therapy, is located at the Leiden Bio Science Park, one of Europe's largest life science clusters. The organization supports academic, small, and large industrial therapy developers in translating research and early-stage clinical programs into patient treatments.
Parallel Developments in Cell and Gene Therapy
The Astraveus-NecstGen partnership comes amid other significant advances in the field. Researchers at the Helmholtz Center Munich recently reported progress with their ENVLPE platform, which uses viral envelopes to package gene-editing complexes. This approach has shown promise in overcoming limitations of viral vectors such as AAV for gene therapy and lentiviral vectors for CAR-T cell therapy.
The ENVLPE platform enables near-allogeneic production of CAR-Ts by eliminating immunogenic T cell proteins and the MHC I complex. In testing, this approach corrected a defect in the Rpe65 gene (associated with hereditary blindness) ten times more efficiently than was possible with viral vectors. The technology also demonstrated efficacy against cancer while reducing unwanted immune reactions.
By focusing on the transport of fully functional ribonucleoproteins rather than the expression of proteins by viral vectors, the ENVLPE platform significantly reduces the probability of undesired immune reactions. This approach could complement Astraveus's efforts to make cell therapies more accessible and affordable.
The strategic partnership between Astraveus and NecstGen represents a significant step forward in addressing the manufacturing challenges that have limited the broader application of CAR-T cell therapies. By combining Astraveus's innovative microfluidic technology with NecstGen's expertise in cell and gene therapy development, the collaboration has the potential to transform the landscape of CAR-T manufacturing, ultimately benefiting patients through increased accessibility to these groundbreaking treatments.
