How Cellares is Reengineering Cell Therapy Manufacturing

Cellares is a biotechnology company specializing in the development and operation of integrated technologies for cell therapy manufacturing. As the first Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization (IDMO), Cellares employs an Industry 4.0 approach to mass-produce the living drugs of the 21st century. Cellares' flagship platform, the Cell Shuttle™, is a fully automated, scalable system that consolidates all necessary technologies for end-to-end cell therapy manufacturing. This platform enables high-throughput production, delivering true walk-away automation. The company's Smart Factories, located in South San Francisco, California, and Bridgewater, New Jersey, are designed to meet global patient demand for cell therapies. By partnering with academic institutions, biotech firms, and pharmaceutical companies, Cellares aims to accelerate drug development, reduce manufacturing costs, and enhance the accessibility of life-saving cell therapies worldwide. 

Fabian Gerlinghaus, co-founder and CEO, is clear about the company’s purpose. “Cell therapies hold enormous promise, but manufacturing has remained slow, costly, and fragmented. We saw an opportunity to change that by building an end-to-end system that increases output, reduces errors, and improves patient access.”

An Integrated System for a Complex Challenge

Cellares stands as the first Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization (IDMO), uniting robotics, software, and engineering within a cohesive framework. Its signature technology, the Cell Shuttle, integrates all the steps required for cell therapy production — offering a modular, high-throughput platform that runs independently once set up.

Instead of relying on disconnected machines and manual labor, the Cell Shuttle creates a fully automated production line. Fabian explains, “By linking everything together, we allow skilled operators to focus on oversight and refinement rather than repetitive tasks. This improves efficiency and strengthens quality control, which are critical for therapies with such high stakes.”

The Cell Shuttle operates within Cellares’ Smart Factories, which can be deployed around the world to match patient demand. This modular approach allows manufacturing capacity to expand precisely where and when it is needed — a vital advancement as cell therapies grow beyond small-scale clinical trials.

Partnerships That Speed Progress

Cellares is not working alone. The company actively partners with academic groups, biotechs, and large pharmaceutical firms, offering access to its manufacturing technologies to help them bring new cell therapies to patients faster.

Fabian sees these partnerships as essential to progress. “We help our partners lower manufacturing costs, reduce the risk of process failures, and scale up production without losing sight of quality. That lets them focus on innovation, while we handle the complexities of manufacturing at scale.”

By collaborating across the research and development pipeline, Cellares helps ensure that the most promising cell therapies are not trapped by production bottlenecks or high costs — a barrier that has historically limited patient access.

Strong Backing and a Clear Global Vision

With more than $355 million raised from top-tier investors, Cellares is well positioned to expand its reach. The Bridgewater Smart Factory serves as both a commercial-scale production center and a demonstration of how the company’s technology can work at full capacity.

Fabian is candid about the work that has gone into building this foundation. “Years of engineering and real-world testing were required to bring this vision to life. But now we have a system that can handle the needs of a global patient population and deliver consistent, reliable output.”

This combination of scientific understanding, engineering expertise, and manufacturing discipline places Cellares in a rare position — one where it can support not just a few select therapies but a growing pipeline of treatments across many disease areas.

Looking Toward a Scalable, Reliable Future

As the demand for cell therapies increases, Cellares stands ready with a system built for consistency, scale, and speed. By removing many of the long-standing hurdles in manufacturing, the company is helping to ensure that new therapies reach patients efficiently and reliably.

Fabian closes with a grounded perspective. “We never set out just to build machines. We set out to build solutions that serve the entire cell therapy ecosystem — from research to treatment. The future of medicine will rely on the ability to manufacture living drugs at scale, and that’s exactly what we are delivering.”

Fabian Gerlinghaus, Co-Founder & CEO, Cellares

Cell therapies hold enormous promise, but manufacturing has remained slow, costly, and fragmented. We saw an opportunity to change that by building an end-to-end system that increases output, reduces errors, and improves patient access.