CellFiber, Tidewave Bio to Evaluate 3D Cell Culture Platform for Scalable Manufacturing

Editor’s Take: If such technology is scalable, it could mean a lot for the future of cell immunotherapy.

CellFiber and Tidewave Bio will evaluate CellFiber’s 3D cell culture platform in supporting scalable manufacturing of Tidewave’s next-generation cell immunotherapy.

Based in Tokyo, CellFiber is a biotechnology company built on its proprietary cell encapsulation platform. Tidewave, in Los Angeles, also a biotech, is developing a universal, off-the-shelf immunotherapy platform for solid tumors.

3D Manufacturing the Future?

In short, the companies will do a joint proof-of-concept evaluation first taking a look at a conventional planar (2D) cell culture. This will be compared to CellFiber’s encapsulation (3D) approach for immune cell expansion and differentiation, relevant to Tidewave’s allogeneic platform.

“Tidewave Bio is pursuing a genuinely differentiated approach to solid tumor immunotherapy,” CellFiber Representative Director and CEO Kazuchika Furuishi, PhD, said. “We are excited to support their program. Our CellFiber platform was designed to remove the manufacturing bottlenecks that have historically constrained cell therapy scale-up. This collaboration is an opportunity to demonstrate the value our closed, automated 3D culture system can bring.”

Also commenting, Tidewave Bio CEO Francois Binette.

“Tidewave Bio’s mission is to make next-generation cancer immunotherapy accessible to every solid tumor patient,” Binette said. “Delivering on that mission requires manufacturing approaches that can scale efficiently, reliably, and cost-effectively. We are pleased to partner with CellFiber to evaluate how their innovative encapsulation platform can support our process development strategy.”

How CellFiber, Tidewave Collab Will Operate

The work detailed in the collaboration will be performed at CellFiber’s Tokyo facility. The idea is to generate process performance data to drive Tidewave’s manufacturing strategy as the program advances. At the same time, the data expect to demonstrate how viable the CellFiber platform is in off-the-shelf solid tumor immunotherapy manufacturing.

Activities beyond the proof-of-concept evaluation are subject to separate written agreement between CellFiber and Tidewave.