Celleo has completed its relocation to new headquarters and laboratory facilities within Melbourne’s Jumar Bioincubator[i].

Celleo team at the Jumar facility.

The new office and laboratory spaces position Celleo in the heart of Melbourne’s renowned Parkville biomedical precinct – a thriving hub for biotechnology, adjacent to world-leading research organisations and prominent biotech companies, fostering a rich environment for collaboration and innovation.

“Celleo’s mission is to transform cell therapy manufacturing, enabling true population-level health outcomes,” noted David Kneen, Celleo’s CEO and co-founder. “Our relocation to this world-class facility significantly enhances our capacity and capability to deliver Intelligent Production Systems for Cell Therapy for the world’s most advanced biotherapeutics, expanding their reach to patients in need.”

Jumar Bioincubator is a collaborative initiative established by three of Australia’s most distinguished institutions – CSL[ii], WEHI[iii], and the University of Melbourne[iv] – with strategic investment from Breakthrough Victoria[v].  The facility is housed across two levels at CSL’s new global headquarters and centre for R&D.

State-of-the-art facilities to deliver for global biopharmaceutical customers

Celleo’s new facilities include multiple OGTR[vi]-certified PC2 laboratories, enabling the team’s work with advanced biologicals – including gene-modified cell products – a key pillar of the company’s technology development and validation.

PC 2 laboratory at Celleo’s new Jumar HQ
(Image: Jumar).

A fully-equipped, advanced manufacturing space houses final assembly, performance testing and QA-release of Celleo’s GMP production systems, before dispatch to the company’s global customers and collaboration partners.

“Robust foundations are the cornerstone of our business,” reflected Mark Rob, Celleo’s CTO and co-founder.  “Our investment in state-of-the-art facilities underlines our commitment to delivering powerful, flexible manufacturing platforms surpassing the stringent performance and quality expectations of our customers.”

The office space houses Celleo’s Melbourne-based team members across product development, system prototype and test, supply-chain, GMP system assembly and validation, quality management including QMS and QA/QC, project management and executive leadership.

Accelerating operations to meet market demand

Manufacturing is broadly acknowledged as a key industry bottleneck for cell therapies.  Current-generation production processes suffer from intensive manual operations and high process variability, ultimately driving outsized cost and limiting market penetration despite patient demand.

“Our customers produce the world’s most advanced therapies for cancer and autoimmune disease, such as CAR-T cell therapies,” continued David Kneen.  “Our production systems drive reliable, cost-effective manufacturing, helping transition cell therapies from niche treatments to widely-accessible therapeutic options.”

The new headquarters are an exciting chapter for Celleo, and critically have the expansion potential to support their demand-driven growth. Celleo continues to position itself well to play a pivotal role in revolutionising cell therapy manufacturing.

[i] jumarbio.com

[ii] csl.com

[iii] Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, wehi.edu.au

[iv] unimelb.edu.au

[v] breakthroughvictoria.com

[vi] Office of the Gene Technology Regulator, ogtr.gov.au