AcouSort wants to unleash the enormous potential of cell therapy

There is currently an incredible development of revolutionary cell and gene therapy treatments that will revolutionize healthcare through their ability to effectively treat and cure diseases that currently lack effective therapies. However, the fantastic medical potential is currently limited by expensive manufacturing processes. All major Life Science instrument companies therefore have active programs to automate the manufacture of cell therapies and thereby reduce today’s high costs. It is precisely within this crucial automation that AcouSort, through its unique technology, can help make cell therapies available to more patients.

The reason for the current high cost is a combination of the need for sterile laboratories and the extensive manual handling required to produce the therapeutic cells. Cell therapies have price tags of up to USD 500,000 per treatment, a price level that is prohibitive for most health insurance or public health care plans.

Rapid increase in approved cell therapies

The number of clinically approved cell and gene therapies is increasing rapidly, and more are on the way. The majority of the new cell therapies are CAR-T cell therapies, where the patient’s own cells are isolated and “trained” (genetically manipulated) to recognize cancer cells. After training and expansion, the cells are administered to the patient where they attack and destroy the cancer cells. So far, all approved cell therapies of this type are aimed at blood cancers, but treatments for tumor-forming cancers are underway.

As a result of the rapid development of new therapies, the global cell therapy market is expected to grow from USD 21.6 billion in 2022 to more than USD 60 billion in 2030[1], corresponding to an annual growth of just over 14 percent.

Cell therapy – a strategic focus for AcouSort

AcouSort’s strategy is to develop and deliver automated cell treatment components that can replace several of today’s manual steps and thus contribute to making the manufacturing process both more efficient and safer. The components are for single use, which means that AcouSort sees great opportunities to establish a significant stream of recurring revenue over time.

Several important contacts

AcouSort has already been approached by a handful of multinational Life Science companies seeking solutions to contain and automate cell therapeutic processing, thus eliminating the current manual processes.

The most significant commercial success in the field of cell therapy to date was achieved in January this year when AcouSort received an order of a total value of EUR 130,000 from a global Life Science company. The deal is an extension of a project initiated in November 2022. This important collaboration, which continues to develop well, is fully in line with AcouSort’s ambition to establish long-term relationships with the company’s customers through sales of OEM components.

AcouSort still has some way to go to create a steady flow of recurring revenue through sales of OEM components, but in 2023 the company has taken several significant steps forward through the commercial research and development projects that the company runs together with a number of customers.

Focus 2023

In 2023, AcouSort will continue to develop and market its cell wash, cell separation and cell up-concentration applications for automation of cell therapy sample preparation. An important part is the technical development of high throughput units followed by the development of new marketing materials highlighting the benefits of these high throughput units. With more data and ready applications, the company is aiming to intensify its market outreach during the second half of the year to interact with more potential partners active in the field of cell therapy development.

[1] https://www.precedenceresearch.com/point-of-care-testing-market