Officials at Cellares said the company has secured a site and signed a long-term lease for a new integrated development and manufacturing organization (IDMO) Smart Factory at Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP) with Dura Vermeer Commercieel Vastgoed. The facility will serve as Cellares’ European headquarters and expand the company’s global manufacturing network with dedicated regional capacity, adds a company spokesperson.
Cell therapy manufacturing is patient-specific and time-sensitive, making regional production capacity increasingly important as programs advance from clinical development toward commercial supply. The new Netherlands hub is designed to provide European drug developers with access to automated manufacturing infrastructure, while maintaining alignment to a common production standard across Cellares’ global facilities, continued the spokesperson.
The leased premises comprise approximately 9,741 square meters (about 105,000 square feet) of laboratory and office space within the Nexus building in Leiden, a newly constructed life sciences facility currently under development and expected to be delivered in the first quarter of 2026.
Following delivery, Cellares plans to complete a phased fit-out to prepare the facility for operations, with initial occupancy anticipated later in 2026.
The Leiden site is intended to support automated cell therapy manufacturing programs for European and global partners as they plan regional clinical and commercial supply. Following delivery and completion of the fit-out, the Netherlands Smart Factory is expected to deploy Cellares’ fully automated Cell Shuttle™ manufacturing platforms and Cell Q™ quality control systems to enable consistent execution and streamlined process transfer across geographies, extending the company’s global IDMO network across North America, Asia, and Europe, according to Fabian Gerlinghaus, co-founder and CEO.
The Netherlands site builds on Cellares’ commercial-scale IDMO Smart Factory in Bridgewater, NJ in the U.S., and its original manufacturing operations in South San Francisco, with additional Smart Factory capacity in development in Japan. Together, these sites are designed to support dependable process transfer, accelerated scaleup, and a consistent manufacturing standard that expands patient access to cell therapies worldwide, explained Gerlinghaus.
Separately, Gerlinghaus noted that Cabaletta Bio’s investigational CAR T cell therapy rese-cel (resecabtagene autoleucel) received FDA clearance of an IND Amendment to use Cellares’ Cell Shuttle and Cell Q platforms for manufacturing and QC release testing.
The clearance allows for the clinical manufacturing and release of rese-cel using Cellares’ fully automated end-to-end manufacturing and high-throughput quality control platforms, with first patient dosing anticipated in the first half of 2026, he pointed out while calling the Cell Shuttle and Cell Q platforms’ first use to support an active clinical program a milestone.
