07 May 2023, Shanghai – CytoNiche Biotechnology, a biotechnology company with a cutting-edge of 3D dissolvable porous microcarriers, announced today the official opening of their Center of Excellence (CoE) – a state-of-the-art research and development facility, located at Shanghai Fengxian District Lingang Nanqiao Science and Technology Park. This CoE shall advance a 3D ‘intelligent manufacturing’ platform for the development of up-to-downstream bioprocesses in the cell and gene therapies. Along with the grand opening, CytoNiche Biotechnology also announced the completion of its Beijing R&D Center and Tianjin cGMP Production Center, for which this CoE shall synergise and strengthen world-class cooperations and innovations. 

Co-founder and Chief Scientist Officer, Professor Du Yanan, also a tenured Professor at Tsinghua University School of Medicine added, “The grand opening of CytoNiche’s CoE is an exciting chapter. I attribute this achievement to the dedication and amazing work of our team. This year has made inroads of our technologies in the CGT field, and ultimately making a positive impact for patients and a difference in human wellness.”

“The CoE will provide strong support for expanding overseas markets and accelerating integration into new formats in the global biopharmaceutical industry. We pride ourselves as the holistic provider being able to drive development with CDMO services and enhance enterprise value through international technology innovation partnerships.” Said Dr. Liu Wei, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer of CytoNiche.

The CoE inaugurated its new site in an event graced by the Chinese leaders, and international partners, namely representatives from Ants Innovate (Singapore) and SEIKO Corporation (Japan).

“We are very optimistic about the microcarrier technology and its scalability in 3D manufacturing platform. We believe that CytoNiche Biotechnology will have global attractiveness and competitiveness in domestic and overseas markets. SEIKO Corporation will partner CytoNiche to explore cooperation opportunities across a broad range of application areas, including product development, cross-listing, joint marketing campaign and products promotion in the Japanese market,” said Mr. Yoshio Nishimura, Trustee and Deputy Head of Japan SEIKO Corporation. 

"As part of this strategic partnership, we will establish a joint laboratory in Singapore, which will promote our ongoing research collaboration, and enable Cytoniche to establish a physical presence in Southeast Asia. This joint laboratory is a great demonstration of the win-win relationship between our two companies. We hope our close partnership can continue well to expand microcarriers into new product development for biosustainability (cell-cultured meat production)", said Dr. Wu Sheng Yong, Chief Technology Officer of Ants Innovate.

Professor Du Yanan

Tenured Professor at Tsinghua University School of Medicine
Co-founder & Chief Scientist of CytoNiche

Professor Hanry Yu

Professor, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore
Founder of Ants Innovate, Singapore

Mr. Yoshio Nishimura

Trustee and Deputy Head of Japan SEIKO Corporation

Dr. Wu Sheng Yong

Chief Technology Officer, Ants Innovate, Singapore

Dr. Liu Wei

Co-founder & CEO, CytoNiche

           Signed a cooperation agreement with SEIKO Corporation on the Japan market to promote cell ‘Intelligent’ manufacturing platform.

           Signed a cooperation agreement with Ants Innovate Private Limited (Singapore) for establishing a joint laboratory in Singapore.

The 3D cell ‘intelligent’ manufacturing platform addresses the pain points faced by the cell and gene industries. At the same time, it also showcased the originality of 3D cell culture technology and its related products that can solve industrial bioprocess problems for large-scale cells production and preparation.

[About CytoNiche Biotechnology Co., Ltd.]

Beijing Cytoniche Biotechnology Co., Ltd. was founded by the scientific research team of Professor Du Yanan of Tsinghua University School of Medicine and co-established by Tsinghua University. The core technology comes from the transformation of scientific and technological achievements of Tsinghua University. The company now creates a 3D-cell-based "intelligent manufacturing" platform, which is based on the large-scale customized expansion process of 3D microcarriers (TableTrix® microcarrier). TableTrix® is the first pharmaceutical excipient-grade microcarrier that can be used for cell drug development. It has passed the inspection report of relevant authoritative institutions such as the Central Inspection Institute and successfully obtained the qualification of pharmaceutical excipients of the State Food and Drug Administration (CDE Approval Registration Number: F20210000003、F20200000496). TableTrix® obtained the United States FDA DMF Pharmaceutical Excipient Qualification (DMF：35481).  

CytoNiche’s technologies, products and services can be widely used in the upstream process development of gene and cell therapy, extracellular vesicles, vaccines and protein products. At the same time, it also has a wide range of application prospects in the fields of regenerative medicine, organoids and food technology (cell-cultured meat, etc.). 

[About CytoNiche’s Product(s)]

Based on the 3D microcarrier cell culture technology, Cytoniche developed the 3D FloTrix® cell large-scale full-automatic preparation process system. This includes automated equipment such as cell culture bioreactors, cell cleaning harvesting, and extracellular vesicle enrichment, as well as reagent consumables such as stem cell culture media and extracellular vesicle preparations. It can complete the entire process from cell inoculation, cell amplification, stepwise amplification, mild harvesting, cleaning and concentration to formulation packaging, meeting the requirements of fully enclosed large-scale and intelligent production and preparation of cell drugs, cell derivatives, viruses, and proteins.