ScaleReady Awards G-Rex® Grants to Support Cell and Gene Therapy Manufacturing in California

ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- ScaleReady, in collaboration with Wilson Wolf Manufacturing, Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH) and CellReady, today announced that eight (8) G-Rex Grants, totaling nearly $2 million in support, have been awarded to awardees of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) Manufacturing Network (INFR5) program.

CIRM has developed a unique funding opportunity for non-profit academic GMP manufacturing facilities to enhance operations and to establish productive partnerships with industry and non-profit stakeholders to further establish California as a world leading hub of cell and gene therapy (CGT) manufacturing.

"CIRM's California Manufacturing Network initiative recognizes the integral role that California academic manufacturing facilities play in advancing the development of innovative cell and gene therapies. We applaud the CIRM awardees for securing G-Rex grants to further advance the development of cost-effective cell therapy manufacturing platforms for patients," said Dr. Shyam Patel, Associate Vice President of Preclinical Development at CIRM.

"It's gratifying to know that the G-Rex manufacturing platform is being widely adopted by California's prestigious academic manufacturing facilities that are pursuing groundbreaking cell and gene therapy discoveries, clinical trials, and drug product approvals," said John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Wolf and co-inventor of G-Rex.

The following G-Rex Grants were awarded to these CIRM INFR5 Recipients:

• Dr. Dan Kaufman, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Cell Therapy Program at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), was awarded a $125,000 G-Rex Grant to support the development of a novel G-Rex® based production system to manufacture novel virus-like particles for in vivo immune cell engineering.
  
  
• Dr. Taby Ahsan, Vice President of Cell & Gene Therapy at City of Hope, was awarded a $300,000 G-Rex Grant to support the continuation of process development efforts on a G-Rex based CAR-T cell therapy production method. The first clinically available CAR-T cell therapy produced in G-Rex at City of Hope will come from the lab of Dr. Xiuli Wang, also a G-Rex Grant Recipient and professor in the Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation at City of Hope.
  
  
• Dr. Steve Feldman, Site Head and Scientific Director of Stanford Medicine's Laboratory for Cell & Gene Medicine (LCGM), was awarded a $300,000 G-Rex Grant to develop a G-Rex process for manufacturing CAR-T cell therapies. The first CAR-T cell therapy produced in G-Rex at Stanford Medicine's LCGM recently entered the clinic for GPC2⁺ pediatric neuroblastoma and medulloblastoma.
  
  
• Dr. Mohamed Abou-el-Enein, Executive Director of the University of Southern California (USC) / Children's Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) Cell Therapy Program and Founding Director of the cGMP Facility, was awarded a $300,000 G-Rex Grant to further support the development of a novel non-viral manufacturing platform for CAR-T cell therapies.
  
  
• Mr. Brian Fury, Director of the University of California, Davis (UCD) GMP facility, was awarded a $300,000 G-Rex Grant for process development and platform improvements on a G-Rex centric approach to CAR-T cell manufacturing to support both internal investigators and external industry-sponsors.
  
  
• Dr. Brian Shy, Director of the Human Islet and Cellular Transplantation GMP Facility (HICTF) and Dr. Ke Li, Head of Process Development, Investigational Cellular Therapy at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) received a $200,000 G-Rex Grant to make improvements to their existing G-Rex based open-source, fully-non viral CAR-T cell therapy engineering platform. UCSF recently celebrated the FDA's clearance of the investigational new drug (IND) application for their first non-viral anti-BCMA CAR-T cell therapy. The team is working on the second non-viral (anti CD70) CAR-T cell therapy that will be tech transferred from the lab of Dr. Arun Wiita, also a G-Rex Grant Recipient.
  
  
• Dr. Dawn Ward, Medical Director of the Human Gene & Cell Therapy Facility at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), received a $150,000 G-Rex Grant to establish multiple G-Rex based workflows for producing different cell therapy modalities at the new GMP facility. The first cell therapy produced in G-Rex is expected to be a novel invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cell therapy developed by UCLA's Dr. Lili Yang, also a G-Rex Grant Recipient.
  
  
• Dr. Dhruv Sareen, Executive Director of the Cedars Sinai Biomanufacturing Center (CBC), received a $300,000 G-Rex Grant to support the preclinical development and IND-enabling studies for a novel CAR-T cell therapy targeting pancreatic adenocarcinoma. This therapy was developed in the lab of Dr. Joshua Sasine, also a G-Rex Grant Recipient, and will be the first CAR-T cell therapy developed and manufactured at Cedars Sinai.

ScaleReady's G-Rex Grant Program is a $40M initiative to advance the state of cell and gene-modified cell therapy (CGT) development and manufacturing by awarding individual Grant Awards worth up to $300,000. G-Rex Grant Recipients also gain access to exclusive support from ScaleReady's growing consortium of G-Rex Grant Partners who bring best-in-class tools and technologies as well as unparalleled knowledge and expertise in the areas of cGMP manufacturing, quality and regulatory affairs, CGT business operations, and more.

Importantly, ScaleReady has just introduced yet another FREE program to accelerate the universal presence of highly efficient and scalable CGT manufacturing. Under this program ScaleReady has partnered with Hanson Wade to launch an event series called LEAN Cell & Gene^™. All CGT entities are invited to attend and will learn how to systematically identify and eliminate waste, stabilize business operations, increase drug product quality and supply, and develop a LEAN approach to cell and gene therapy development and manufacturing.

For more information about LEAN Cell & Gene^™, please use this link to register for the free event series.

For more information about the G-Rex® Grant Program, please contact i[email protected].

Disclaimer: Reference to CIRM or its awardees in this announcement does not constitute or imply endorsement of ScaleReady or its products by CIRM.

About ScaleReady
ScaleReady provides the field of cell and gene-modified cell therapy (CGT) with a G-Rex centric manufacturing platform that enables the world's most practical, flexible, scalable, and affordable CGT drug product development and manufacturing.

The G-Rex manufacturing platform is currently used by a rapidly growing list of over 800 organizations and is producing drug products for approximately 50% of CGT clinical trials as well as 5 commercially approved CGT drugs.

CGT entities relying on the breadth and scope of ScaleReady's expertise can expect to save years of time and millions of dollars on the path to CGT commercialization.

Importantly, ScaleReady has just introduced yet another FREE program to accelerate the universal presence of highly efficient and scalable CGT manufacturing. Under this program ScaleReady has partnered with Hanson Wade to launch an event series called LEAN Cell & Gene^™. All CGT entities are invited to attend and will learn how to systematically identify and eliminate waste, stabilize business operations, increase drug product quality and supply, and develop a LEAN approach to cell and gene therapy development and manufacturing.

For more information about the ScaleReady G-Rex® Grant Program, please contact [email protected].

About Wilson Wolf Manufacturing
Wilson Wolf (www.wilsonwolf.com) is dedicated to simplifying cell and gene-modified cell (CGT) therapy research, process development, and manufacturing. This is being accomplished through its scalable G-Rex technology, which is used throughout the world in CGT applications ranging from basic research to commercial drug production.

Wilson Wolf's mission is to create hope for cancer patients, one G-Rex® device at a time.

About Bio-Techne Corporation
Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH) is a global life sciences company providing innovative tools and bioactive reagents for the research and clinical diagnostic communities. Bio-Techne, in partnership with Wilson Wolf, is creating products such as media and cytokines that are specifically tailored to G-Rex® Bioreactors, including right-sized reagent quantities in containers that are tailored to high throughput closed-system manufacturing. For more information on Bio-Techne and its brands, please visit https://www.bio-techne.com or follow the Company on social media at:, LinkedIn, X or YouTube.

Contact: David Clair, Vice President, Investor Relations & Corporate Development
[email protected]
612-656-4416

About CellReady LLC
CellReady is the world's first and only G-Rex centric contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) specializing in G-Rex based cell and gene-modified cell therapy development and manufacturing. The company offers a wide range of services to support the development and commercialization of these therapies.

CellReady's mission is to create hope for cancer patients, one G-Rex® process at a time.

SOURCE Bio-Techne Corporation