Cellares and Mitsui Fudosan Announce the First IDMO Smart Factory for Commercial-Scale Cell Therapy Manufacturing in Japan

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. & TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cellares, a pioneer in automated cell therapy manufacturing, in collaboration with Mitsui Fudosan, announces the establishment of Japan’s first next-gen commercial production site for CAR-T cell therapies. The facility is under construction in Kashiwa City, a vibrant urban center located approximately 30 kilometers northeast of central Tokyo in Chiba Prefecture. As part of the extensive Tokyo metropolitan region, Kashiwa serves as a booming biotech hub. This groundbreaking Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization (IDMO) Smart Factory is expected to provide employment to 350 people while enabling scalable and cost-effective cell therapy manufacturing, addressing an urgent need for patients in Japan and neighboring regions.

The facility, set to open in partnership with Mitsui Fudosan, will utilize Cellares' state-of-the-art technology platforms, the Cell Shuttle™ and Cell Q™, to automate cell therapy manufacturing and quality control. The technology reduces batch prices by up to 50% and eliminates the manufacturing bottlenecks faced by conventional CDMOs that use manual processes. Additionally, the entire Smart Factory will be integrated and optimized to eliminate any downstream bottlenecks as well.

“Cellares’ new facility in Kashiwa City will enable our pharma clients to supply Japan from Japan. Manufacturing cell therapies locally simplifies cold chain logistics, accelerates vein-to-vein time and reduces cost,” said Fabian Gerlinghaus, CEO and Co-Founder of Cellares. “Our Japanese IDMO Smart Factory is part of a broader strategy to be a global manufacturing partner for our clients and meet the total patient demand for cell therapies around the world.”

The new site’s impact extends beyond patient care. By accelerating the availability of CAR-T treatments, this initiative has the potential to help advance the development and approval of CAR-T therapeutics in Japan. Once the IDMO Smart Factory is online, technical transfers between Cellares facilities in other regions are expected to be a seamless, rapid, software-enabled process. Thanks to fully automated processes on standardized technologies, tech transfer can now happen at digital speed.

Dr. Toshihiko Doi, the Chairperson of the Kashiwa-no-ha Life Science Committee, shared, “For cancer patients in Japan, the establishment of this facility provides access to cutting-edge therapies that can make a critical difference in their fight against diseases. It marks a significant step toward eliminating the drug delivery lag time that has been a challenge for rare disease and oncology treatments.”

Mitsui Fudosan's robust network in Japan’s life sciences industry has been instrumental in enabling this collaboration, ensuring the smooth dissemination of information to the pharmaceutical industry, government agencies, and the broader healthcare community.

This announcement represents Cellares' commitment to expanding its footprint in Japan, paving the way for further collaborations and innovations.

For more information, visit cellares.com.

About Cellares

Cellares is the first Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization (IDMO) and takes an Industry 4.0 approach to mass manufacturing the living drugs of the 21st century. The company is developing and operating integrated technologies for cell therapy manufacturing to accelerate access to life-saving cell therapies. The company’s Cell Shuttle™ integrates all the technologies required for the entire manufacturing process in a flexible and high-throughput platform that delivers end-to-end automation. While the Cell Shuttle automates cell therapy manufacturing, the Cell Q™ automates quality control at high throughput, both for in-process and release QC. Cell Shuttles™ and Cell Qs™ will be deployed in Cellares’ Smart Factories around the world, enabling each Smart Factory to produce 10 times as many cell therapy batches as a conventional CDMO with the same facility size and headcount. Partnering with Cellares enables academic medical centers, biotechnology companies, and pharmaceutical companies to accelerate cell therapy development and scale out manufacturing, lower process failure rates, lower manufacturing costs, and meet global patient demand.

The company is headquartered in South San Francisco, California with its first commercial-scale IDMO Smart Factory in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Cellares is building a global network of IDMO Smart Factories, with additional facilities under construction in Europe and Japan. The company is backed by world-class investors and has raised over $355 million in financing.

For more information about Cellares, please visit cellares.com.

About Mitsui Fudosan Co.

Mitsui Fudosan is working to create new industries during this time of change in society and the economy. As a "Platformer," the company provides "Places" and "Communities" that bring together the ideas of companies, society, and individuals. In April 2024, it launched a Group’s New Long-Term Vision, setting a strategy to explore areas beyond real estate. To support this, Innovation Promoting Division was established to drive innovation and help create new industries. At Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City, Mitsui Fudosan works with the public, private, and academic sectors to create a community where people can live healthy lives and where new life science industries can grow.

https://www.mitsuifudosan.co.jp/english/