With its ascent seemingly unstoppable in the last few years, automated cell therapy manufacturer Cellares is facing some tough new realities.
A “large pharmaceutical customer” has ended its partnership with Cellares in a move “specific to” that company, Cellares co-founder and CEO Fabian Gerlinghaus revealed in a LinkedIn post over the weekend.
“The loss of this partnership requires us to resize the company,” Gerlinghaus said, without going into specifics on the amount or types of roles being eliminated.
He continued: “That means saying goodbye to talented colleagues who helped build Cellares and advance our mission,” adding that he was deeply grateful for their work at the company, which is now committed to helping affected staffers through the change. Gerlinghaus also invited anyone viewing the post on LinkedIn to reach out for a peek at the company’s resume book.
In an email, a Cellares spokesperson told Fierce that the company couldn't comment on specific headcount details or the identity of the customer that has walked away.
"This reduction is designed to concentrate Cellares’ people and resources behind the clinical and commercial programs the company is advancing," the spokesperson clarified.
Styling itself as an “integrated development and manufacturing organization,” Cellares’ work revolves around its automated cell therapy manufacturing platform, the Cell Shuttle, and a piece of companion automation tech for quality control, dubbed the Cell Q. The technology has been honed in an effort to streamline the labor-intensive cell therapy production process in what Gerlinghaus previously described to Fierce as “two fully integrated technologies.”
Cellares’ work has garnered interest—and partnerships—from numerous cell therapy developers, including larger outfits like Bristol Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences’ Kite Pharma.
The BMS deal, worth a potential $380 million, provided major validation at the time for Cellares, which first emerged in South San Francisco in 2019.
In drafting the post, Gerlinghaus stressed that he wanted “to be clear about something that is fundamental to Cellares: our technology is proven in the clinic.”
He pointed to the milestone administration of cell therapies produced on Cellares’ manufacturing technology—the Cell Shuttle—to patients earlier this year, and argued that his company’s fundamentals “remain strong,” too.
Gerlinghaus said the company has more than doubled its customer base since the start of the year and that recent conversations with other potential customers have been encouraging.
“Our customers know our technology, they know our teams, and they know what we can deliver,” he said.
After debuting shortly before the turn of the decade, Cellares has quickly made a name for itself on its mission to make cell therapy manufacturing more reliable, efficient and scalable.
Buoyed by multiple industry tie-ups, Cellares’ model revolves around offering capacity from its enclosed Cell Shuttle and Cell Q devices at its own facilities. Apart from BMS and Kite, the company in July brought Sonoma Biotherapeutics on board with a pact to automate manufacturing of Sonoma’s lead program for poly-refractory rheumatoid arthritis.
Meanwhile, after unveiling their first-in-patient dosing milestone earlier this year, Cellares and its partner Cabaletta Bio doubled down with a 10-year commercial supply pact for rese-cel, Cabaletta’s CAR-T cell therapy under investigation in several potential autoimmune indications.
Cellares has also made waves with a sizeable series D fundraising round near the start of 2026 and the advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) designation its Cell Shuttle won from the FDA last spring.
In a more recent example of FDA validation, the regulator recently named a Cellares production site in Bridgewater, New Jersey, as one of seven for its PreCheck Pilot Program—an initiative intended to strengthen U.S. drug production and bolster domestic supply chain resilience.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with a statement from Cellares.