Ori Biotech Expands Cell and Gene Therapy Manufacturing Capabilities

Ori Biotech, a leader in cell and gene therapy (CGT) manufacturing technology, has secured over $100 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round. The investment round was led by Novalis LifeSciences with Puhua Capital and Chimera Abu Dhabi coming in as new investors. Existing investors from Ori's $30 million Series A round in 2020, including Amadeus Capital Partners, Delin Ventures, Northpond Ventures and Octopus Ventures, have continued to support the company with additional funding.

Ori will use the funds to further expand key personnel across all functions, in order to rapidly transition through pre-commercialization to the launch of its innovative CGT manufacturing platform. The company is also launching its Lightspeed Early Access Program (LEAP), allowing select partners to gain pre-launch access to the Ori platform in 2022. The Ori platform is a proprietary, full stack manufacturing system that closes, automates, digitizes and standardizes CGT manufacturing. It will enable therapy developers, contract manufacturers and academic researchers to seamlessly transition from pre-clinical process discovery through clinical trials to commercial scale. The promise of the novel Ori platform is to fully automate CGT manufacturing to increase throughput and reproducibility, while improving quality and decreasing costs through the combination proprietary hardware, software, data and analytical tools.

 "Our mission as a company is to enable widespread patient access to life saving cell and gene therapies,” said Jason C. Foster, CEO, Ori Biotech. “One of the biggest obstacles to achieving this is cell and gene therapy manufacturing processes that are too expensive, too highly variable and too low throughput. Our team is focused on the urgent need to enhance the ability of cell and gene therapy developers, CDMOs and Academic Medical Centers to deliver these therapies to as many patients as possible as quickly as possible.”