Cell therapy is an innovative approach which makes therapeutic use of cells to fight a range of diseases including cancer, autoimmune and degenerative disorders.
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T is one prominent type of cell therapy which is already a well-established treatment option for millions of cancer patients. But many more platforms of promising cell therapies (e.g., T cell receptor (TCR) and natural killer (NK) T cells therapies) with the potential to address many currently unmet medical needs are in various phases of development.

In the most common approach, autologous or allogenic cells are genetically modified ex vivo by using a viral vector carrying the genetic material. The cells are subsequently administered to the patients to elicit their therapeutic effect. Lentiviruses and retroviruses are the most frequently used vectors, as they are capable of a stable gene integration.

Cell therapy approaches are highly complex

A cell therapy treatment includes many steps, which are – in case of autologous cell therapy – even performed individually for each patient. These steps include the extraction of the starting cell material, the genetic modification, the manufacturing of the cell preparation, the quality control, the administration to the patient, as well as the transport and storage in between those steps. Cell therapies thereby utilize nucleic acids encoding the genetic material, viral vectors carrying and integrating the genetic material, and – of course – the cell cultures.

Coriolis supports the development of cell therapy products and procedures with a variety of services. We offer the development of stable nucleic acid formulations and their analytical characterization (read more here). Our expert scientists also assess the infectivity of viral vector drug products and obtain stable vector formulations (read more here). Above that, we develop particle characterization methods for quality control and release testing of cell based medicinal products. Our formulation scientists also develop robust liquid, frozen-liquid as well as lyophilized cell preparations suitable for sort and long-term storage. We assess stability of your product against freeze-thaw, light exposure or mechanical stress.