OrganaBio has acquired substantially all of the operating assets of San Diego-based Excellos Inc. to create a bicoastal cell therapy contract development and manufacturing organization. Newly formed OrganaBio subsidiary Excellos Labs, LLC will be responsible for San Diego operations going forward. The acquisition creates a more comprehensive cell therapy service provider, combining complementary capabilities in addition to expanding geographic coverage.
OrganaBio will continue to support developers working with both organizations, improving timely access to critical starting materials and manufacturing redundancy within a single relationship.
The company’s combined platform now spans multiple facilities across the U.S. OrganaBio’s Miami headquarters anchors the East Coast with adult leukapheresis (via its HemaCenter subsidiary), birth tissue and cord blood sourcing (via its GaiaGift subsidiary), ISO 7 cGMP cleanrooms, process development, QC/analytical testing, PBMC isolation, and cryopreservation. On the West Coast, OrganaBio operates cell processing and cryopreservation labs in San Francisco and Irvine, California, and now adds Excellos’ downtown San Diego facility, a purpose-built site with five ISO 7 cGMP cleanroom suites supporting autologous and allogeneic cell therapy manufacturing, cell isolation and enrichment, expansion, and fill/finish. The core Excellos team has been retained to help ensure existing Excellos customer programs will continue uninterrupted.
The new OrganaBio is positioned to address a structural challenge for cell therapy developers and organizations requiring PBMC isolation and cryopreservation services. Dependency on a single source for PBMC isolation and cryopreservation services creates risk in supply chains, while splitting volume across multiple vendors introduces quality risks such as lot-to-lot variability and inconsistent process execution across sites. OrganaBio now offers bicoastal cGMP manufacturing, PBMC isolation for clinical trial samples, and cryopreservation of patient leukopaks ahead of manufacturing, all operating under a single quality framework. This means the company can now deliver the geographic and infrastructure redundancy customers need without the trade-offs that typically come with it, shortening the path from cell therapy development to patients waiting for these treatments.
The combined customer base includes many of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies along with a broad set of public and private biotechnology developers. Therapeutic programs supported across the platform are concentrated in cancer and autoimmune indications, spanning autologous and allogeneic cell therapies in clinical and commercial development.
"Cell therapy developers and the patients waiting on their programs need a manufacturing partner that can match the pace and quality of their work. Combining OrganaBio’s and Excellos’ infrastructure and teams lets us do that more reliably than either company could alone," said Justin Irizarry, CEO of OrganaBio. "Our priority in the coming months is operational continuity for every customer of both companies, with broader capabilities layered in as integration progresses."
"This acquisition is the best of both worlds, ensuring continuity for Excellos' customers as we move into our next phase while adding critical redundancy, expanded geographical reach, and access to additional services and material including cord blood," said Tom VanCott, CEO of Excellos.
In the near term, both organizations will maintain existing operations for customers and partners. Full integration is expected over the next 12 months, with a focus on operational speed and quality, expanding services, and supporting continued growth across the combined platform.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.