Excellos, Lonza, and Akadeum Life Sciences Unite to Advance Cell Therapy Manufacturing Through Enhanced Starting Material Quality

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Aug. 6, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Excellos, Lonza, and Akadeum Life Sciences today announce a new project aimed at redefining standards for cell therapy manufacturing by elevating the role of starting material quality. This project brings together leaders in donor cell characterization, automated manufacturing, and cell separation technology to explore how aligned, modular innovation can streamline workflows and improve outcomes across the cell and gene therapy (CGT) landscape.

Together, the companies are working to spotlight the value of flexible, integrated platforms—from donor sourcing through manufacturing. The project is intended to emphasize how upstream quality impacts downstream performance, and clinical consistency.

Excellos brings its donor-to-dose capabilities—including donor management, apheresis, cell characterization, and GMP manufacturing—while Akadeum contributes its gentle, flotation-based cell separation technology and Lonza offers the Cocoon^® Platform, a functionally closed, automated manufacturing system enabling decentralized scale-up.

While early conversations are exploring the technical feasibility of combining these approaches into a single modular workflow, the immediate focus is on sharing best practices and aligned innovation strategies across upcoming industry events.

These include an August 12 symposium hosted at Excellos' San Diego headquarters and a joint webinar on August 21 titled: Unlocking Upstream Value: Donor-to-Dose Solutions for Scalable Cell Therapy Manufacturing.

The August 12 symposium will feature expert panels co-hosted by Excellos, Teknova, and Pluristyx, covering topics like supply chain risk, regulatory evolution, and emerging tools like AI and machine learning in CGT operations.

The August 21 webinar will bring together scientific experts from the three organizations to discuss how upstream choices surrounding donor sourcing, apheresis processing, cell selection and automated manufacturing affect therapeutic performance, reduce variability, and improve scale-up for both autologous and allogeneic therapies. The discussion will walk through the science and tools required to build robust, patient-informed cell and gene therapy solutions. 

"Quality at the starting point is not optional—it's foundational," said Rob Tressler, CSO of Excellos. "When you bring together deeply characterized donor material, gentle cell selection, and functionally closed-system manufacturing, you set the stage for scalable and consistent therapies."

"Our microbubble technology was built for cell health," said Bill Lloyd, PhD, Senior Director of R&D at Akadeum. "Exploring how our kit performs within an automated environment like the Cocoon^® Platform is part of an exciting vision to scale up without compromising cell quality."

"Lonza is proud to be part of this conversation and collaboration," added Glen Prosise, PhD, MBA, Senior Sales and Applications Manager at Lonza. "The Cocoon^® Platform is designed for integration—and it's exciting to explore how these technologies can work in concert in a way that's intended to help reduce variability and accelerate therapeutic timelines."

The collaboration is rooted in a shared belief: better inputs lead to better therapies. Over the coming months, the companies intend to explore opportunities for deeper technical integration and data-sharing that supports industry-wide advancement in cell therapy manufacturing.

To register for the symposium: August 12, 2025 Cell Therapy Manufacturing Symposium at Excellos HQ
To attend the webinar: Donor-to-Dose Solutions for Scalable Cell Therapy Manufacturing

Media Contacts:
Akadeum: Brandon McNaughton
[email protected]

Excellos: Jessica Wanamaker

[email protected]

SOURCE Akadeum Life Sciences Inc