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Up to 25% of multiple myeloma patients die while waitlisted for a CAR-T slot, and roughly 90% see their disease progress before they reach the chair.
An estimated 450,000 cancer patients were eligible for CAR-T in 2019; that number is projected to hit 2 million by 2029.
Cellares, the world's first Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization (IDMO), is building automated “smart factories” purpose-built to close that gap. Its Cell Shuttle runs up to 16 patient batches in parallel, end-to-end and closed, with roughly 10× the throughput and a lower per-patient cost than conventional CDMO setups. Recent milestones include:
- A $257 million Series D in January 2026, led by BlackRock and Eclipse, funding the rollout of IDMO smart factories across North America, Europe, and Asia.
- A $380 million global manufacturing agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb that reserved commercial-scale capacity in the U.S., Europe, and Japan.
- The Cell Shuttle becoming the first cell therapy manufacturing platform to receive the FDA's Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT) designation.
- A new collaboration with Autolus Therapeutics to evaluate automated manufacturing of AUCATZYL (obe-cel) on the Cell Shuttle.
At Meeting on the Med 2026, reporting for Onyx, Federico Citterich sat down with Ali Soleymannezhad to find out more.
A special thanks to our Onyx Live sponsors:
Cellares – delivering cell therapy manufacturing excellence at scale across a global network of IDMO smart factories https://www.cellares.com/
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