The First Cell Culture Platform that Enables Affordable Cell Therapies at a Large Scale

Cell therapy has shown promising results for treating and curing a large range of diseases, from cancer to diabetes. The principles of cell therapy are easy to describe: cells (possibly modified) are injected into patients. Cell therapy is now a reality in Europe: in August 2018 the first two treatments for patients with blood cancer were approved; more of them are about to successfully conclude the approval path. What hinders the large-scale uptake of cell therapy is its costs: culturing enough cells of high quality requires specialised personnel and infrastructure, which only a few centres can afford. The market asks for a scalable cell culture platform that can produce large quantities of high quality cells at much lower costs than done nowadays. To address this need, we have developed the Facer – the first fully-autonomous cell culture platform. The Facer can manufacture billions of high-quality cells starting from the small quantity (about 500,000 cells) of a tissue biopsy without the need of human intervention, thanks to a unique patented iterative process. Our product is at TRL 7; its performances, in terms of quality and costs, are superior to any competitor commercially available. We have developed the Facer over the course of 5 years thanks to cash investments of over €3 million. In the Phase 2 project we will finalise the product, perform a validation with external partners, prepare the product for CE marking (our product is not a medical device), and find a distributor and a launching customer. We will initially tackle the European market to then expand globally once that the local regulatory barriers are overcome. In 2024, after 5 years from the first sale, our turnover will surpass the €60 million and our EBITDA will be over €36 million. Our innovation can enable affordable cell therapies at a large scale and change the life of millions of patients who suffer from diseases that have been deemed 'incurable' so far.