Cell & Gene Therapy Insights
Latest advances in CAR-T cell manufacture & clinical developments
PHILIP H COELHO, Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of ThermoGenesis Corp., the device Division of Cesca Therapeutics (is an engineer/inventor, educated at the University of California, Davis, where he specialized in thermodynamics and machine design. He has been awarded more than 40 US patents related to cell selection, cell cryopreservation, cell washing, automated cryogenic freezing and storage of cells and harvesting clotting proteins from blood. As Founder, Chairman and CEO of ThermoGenesis Corp., Mr. Coelho developed the Thermoline ultra rapid blood plasma freezers and thawers, the CryoSeal automated system for preparing fibrin sealant from a surgical patient’s blood, the BioArchive® robotic system for controlled-rate freezing and cryogenically archiving units of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells derived from placental/cord blood and the AutoXpress System, which automates harvesting of HSPCs from cord blood into a 25 ml dual-compartment freezing bag. The BioArchive and AutoXpress Systems have established the highest quality GMP standards in cord blood processing and banking worldwide. Over the last 9 years, Mr. Coelho, and an excellent team of engineers and cell biologists, began developing next-generation, GMP compliant, programmable systems that improve the speed and efficiency of the isolation, capture and purification of stem, progenitor and immune cells residing within peripheral or placental/cord blood, bone marrow aspirate and leukapheresis. These research projects evolved into the CAR-TXpress™ platform, a semi-automated method of manufacturing therapeutic doses of CAR-T cells in a functionally closed cell processing system.