Integrated development and manufacturing organisation (IDMO) Cellares has raised $255m in a Series C financing round for a cell therapy development facility at Bridgewater in New Jersey, US.

New investor Koch Disruptive Technologies led the funding round and its managing director David Mauney will join Cellares’s board of directors.

The financing round saw participation from Bristol Myers Squibb, Willett Advisors and DFJ Growth, along with current investors Eclipse, Decheng Capital and 8VC. 

To be spread over 118,000ft², the new commercial-scale IDMO smart factory will feature robotics, tailored technology and interconnected software. 

The facility will manufacture 40,000 cell therapy batches annually.

IDMO smart factories use combined technologies to manufacture ten times more cell therapy batches annually versus standard CDMO plants, utilising the same labour and footprint. 

Cellares's technology adoption partnership programme aids the collaboration of cell therapy developers in automating and transferring technology manual processes onto the manufacturing platform within six months.

This platform merges all the technologies needed to carry out the operations in the unit.

Cellares CEO Fabian Gerlinghaus stated: “The creation of the first IDMO marks the beginning of a new era, in which cell therapies will finally be able to reach those in need. 

“We’ve developed integrated technologies for the entire drug development and manufacturing lifecycle. 

“Now we’re leveraging these technologies to offer global manufacturing services for the living drugs of the 21st century.”