Integrated Platform Eliminates Ex-Vivo Expansion Barrier for CAR-T Access
*Full transcript available below
Cell and gene therapy (CGT) manufacturing faces persistent barriers in cost, labor, and scalability, as the biopharmaceutical industry has experienced. A review of a partnership
The partnership is focusing on embedding Autolomous’s automated digital solution directly into Trenchant’s compact manufacturing chassis. The goal is to enable fully automated CGT production that is both scalable and consistent across patients, a critical requirement as therapies move beyond niche applications.
How can AI-driven automation scale CGT manufacturing?
According to executives involved in this collaboration, the core industry challenge is scaling individualized therapies without compromising quality. “We need to make it reality. We need to think about not decades from now. We need to think about five years from now,”
The combined platform is designed to provide flexible, configurable manufacturing capabilities that support multi-patient autologous production. Trenchant’s proprietary tools allow finer control over therapeutic configuration, according to the company, while Autolomous’s digital environment standardizes operations and data flows. This combination targets batch-to-batch consistency and operational robustness, areas frequently cited as weak points in
Operational efficiency is also a central theme of the collaboration. By compressing production timelines to as little as 2.5 days and projecting cost reductions of more than 80%, the partnership aspires to make CGT therapies accessible to
Successful progress of the Trenchant–Autonomous model could signal a broader shift toward AI-enabled, end-to-end automated platforms as the foundation for next-generation CGT manufacturing.
Transcript
Editor's note: This transcript is a direct, unedited rendering of the original audio/video content. It may contain errors, informal language, or omissions as spoken in the original recording.
Feliza Mirasol
Hello and welcome to BioPharm International. I'm Feliza Mirasol, the science editor, as the biopharmaceutical industry has seen the inherent complexities of cell and gene therapy, manufacturing demand, radical technical solutions to overcome barriers related to cost, labor intensity and logistical scalability. A look back at a partnership started early this year in January 2025 between US based trenchant bio systems, a CGT platform developer and UK based autonomous a specialized cloud software developer has been addressing this imperative through the combination of fully automated and digitalized technologies. The core objective here is the seamless integration of autonomous, automate, digital solution directly into trenchants, compact, automated manufacturing chassis. Here's what trenchant and autonomous executives have to say about what unmet CGT manufacturing needs their combined technologies address.
Speaker 1
There are many things that is being asked by the industry. I think one of the major pieces how we can do what we do very well in one patient, but in many patients, how we can scale it, how we can scale out without compromising the quality, how we can really bring the best in class of different sorts on the one roof and really make the miracles for many, many patients, how we can bring the industry to a progressive, more viable setting, these are the questions we asked. Ultimately, we need to think about viability of this industry from scaling perspective. We need to think about how we can make it in masses, how we can really bring a new era of medicine to humanity. And I think this is it. This is four pillar of medicine. And this is the pillar of medicine is going to be stronger and stronger as we go forward. We need to make it reality. We need to think about not decades from now. We need to think about five years from now. And I want to see a word that majority of people, they have access to this medicine, to this life saving medicine. I want to see a revolution in healthcare system that enables people, rather than shuffling papers, to cure people. This is the aim that John and I and many in the industry share, by being pragmatic, by thinking about the end game? I think we can progress much better and but sheer fact of working together,
Speaker 2
I think that really revolves around trying to design something which is fit for purpose, not just now, not trying to band aid and resolve just the issues that have happened so far in the industry, but also look at where we want to go in the coming years. What are the what flexibility, what tools are people going to be able to need to make these cell therapies fit for purpose? And so that's something we work pretty hard on. Trenchant with our platform, we've got a fair few novel and proprietary tools in the platform that allow far more configuration of the therapeutic such that it can be far more consistent between patients, and that's been something we think is quite exciting. It really allows our customers and our users to be able to really standardize their manufacturing process and ensure batch to batch consistency, even in an autologous setting. I think that science is a problem. Manufacturing is a problem, and definitely the whole operation side of everything is a huge problem that's an underserved aspect of manufacturing and probably not even talked about as much as it probably should be.
Feliza Mirasol
Ultimately, these integrated technologies are projected to compress overall manufacturing timelines to as little as 2.5 days, reducing current costs by over 80% for the biopharma industry, this degree of automated efficiency and digitalization is essential to realistically realize the dramatic therapeutic potential of cgts, ensuring these complex therapies can reach unprecedented patient numbers.
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