Under the terms of the agreement, Lonza will evaluate the Octane Cocoon platform for autologous cell therapy products. What sets the Octane Cocoon apart from other more labor-intensive platforms is the potential to enable the automated manufacturing of patient-specific cell therapies, the companies said.
Uwe Gottschalk, Chief Technology Officer of Lonza Pharma & Biotech, said: “With the Octane Cocoon platform, breakthrough therapies such as cancer immunotherapy may be translated into a new manufacturing paradigm... This collaboration for the patient-scale manufacturing complements our efforts to establish allogeneic production standards based on bioreactor processes, and it underlines Lonza's technology leadership in cell and gene therapy manufacturing.”
Octane and Lonza are specifically looking to support clinical adoption and scale-up of new treatment standards arising from recent successes in the field of advanced therapy medicinal products.
Tim Smith, CEO of Octane, added, “Our design and production teams invented the Octane Cocoon platform with multiple first-to-market, clinically oriented features to ensure successful deployment across centralized and decentralized facilities. Projected growth in autologous cell therapy products requires a new and sustainable manufacturing outlook, and Lonza is an ideal partner to commercialize these innovations for international markets.”