Cellular Origins, a company focused on enabling scalable, cost-effective, and efficient robotic manufacture of cell and gene therapies (CGTs), the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGT Catapult), an independent organization specializing in the advancement of the cell and gene therapy industry, and Resolution Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering regenerative macrophage therapy to treat inflammatory and fibrotic diseases, have formed a consortium funded by a cross-industry Smart Grant of GBP 1 million from Innovate UK, to deliver a hyper-efficient, fully automated, scalable cell therapy manufacturing platform.

The project commenced on July 1, 2025, and will last for 20 months.

The consortium partners have chosen to collaborate by combining their respective expertise in robotic and digital technologies, manufacturing processes, operations and facilities management, therapy development, novel product processes, and patient delivery. They intend to expand this collaboration further through future joint development and delivery capabilities. Providing additional support to the project are ScaleReady with its G-Rex bioreactor platform, and Autolomous with its AutoloMATE eBMR solution.

“The CGT sector is currently only capable of manufacturing sufficient doses to treat less than 7 percent of eligible patients globally,” said Edwin Stone, CEO, Cellular Origins. “To deliver therapies to the patients that need them requires fully automated manufacturing of the type that has revolutionized other high-tech manufacturing.  This requires solving the cell therapy specific technology challenges that allow the adoption of advanced robotics and AI into cell therapy manufacturing.”

According to Stone, this partnership “will deliver the most advanced, fully tested, fully automated robotically operated CGT manufacturing platform to the market.”

The project will deliver full integration of the hardware and software of Constellation, Cellular Origins’ CGT robotic manufacturing platform, at the CGT Catapult’s Digital and Automation Testbeds in the Stevenage Manufacturing Innovation Centre, UK. These Testbeds serve as good manufacturing practice (GMP)-mirroring sandbox environments for de-risked and accelerated testing and adoption of next-generation technologies. CGT Catapult will commission the platform within the real-world manufacturing environment of its Testbeds to support the national and international roll-out of Constellation. This world-first installation will be fully accessible to collaborators through the Digital and Automation Testbeds.

“CGTs continue to deliver unparalleled therapeutic efficacy and life-saving or transforming options for a plethora of patients with currently limited therapeutic options,” said Matthew Durdy, Chief Executive, CGT Catapult. “One of the most challenging problems to international delivery of these therapies to patients continues to be manufacturing. It is clear that robotics, AI and digitization have now advanced to provide the required solution.”

The project will also benefit from the input, advice and direction of Resolution Therapeutics. Resolution will provide key corporate, clinical and commercial expertise as a therapy developer of a new type of cell therapy called Regenerative Macrophage Therapy (RMT) with lead asset to treat end-stage liver disease. Resolution will inform the development direction and viability to ensure the adaptability of the platform for novel cell therapies, such as for Resolution’s groundbreaking macrophage therapy products. This will result in the route map and the transformation from manual clinical-scale manufacturing to fully automate, GMP-ready, commercial-scale CGT manufacturing at the scale required to meet areas of significant unmet need.

Cellular Origins has already completed pre-activity for the project by installing the first Constellation system at the CGT Catapult’s Digital and Automation Testbeds in Stevenage, UK. The intention is for full market supply and application of the automated robotics manufacturing platform for CGT developers, integrating known and proven instrumentation from trusted third-party suppliers with minimum process change, within Cellular Origins’ workstations and factory installations.