Cellares has expanded its Series D financing to $277 million after securing a $20 million investment from ARK Invest, strengthening support for its automated cell therapy manufacturing platform as it prepares for commercial-scale operations.

The investment adds ARK to an existing group of institutional backers including BlackRock, Eclipse, T Rowe Price Investment Management, Baillie Gifford, Duquesne Family Office and Intuitive Ventures.

The funding announcement comes as Cellares continues to advance its manufacturing capabilities, having recently produced and delivered its first GMP cell therapy doses to patients using its Cell Shuttle platform. The company also signed a 10-year commercial supply agreement with Cabaletta Bio and is expanding its network of manufacturing facilities in anticipation of broader commercial demand.

Cathie Wood, founder, chief executive officer and chief investment officer of ARK Invest, said: “The science behind cell therapy is proven. The challenge now is manufacturing these life-saving treatments at the scale and cost required to meet patient demand.

“Cellares sits at the convergence of robotics, software, and biotechnology, bringing the automation needed to transform cell therapy manufacturing from a bespoke process into an industrial-scale platform.”

Cell therapies have attracted increasing attention across the pharmaceutical sector, but manufacturing remains a significant challenge because treatments are often produced individually for each patient under tightly controlled conditions.

Cellares aims to address those constraints through automation, combining manufacturing technologies with software-driven processes intended to improve consistency and increase production capacity.

The company said the latest funding will support the continued development of its Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization model and its network of Smart Factories in the US, Europe and Japan, with commercial-scale manufacturing targeted for 2027.

Fabian Gerlinghaus, co-founder and chief executive officer of Cellares, said: “We have manufactured cell therapies on the Cell Shuttle and delivered doses to patients on schedule. That is the proof the field has been waiting for.

“The question was never whether automated manufacturing could work, but whether it could work at commercial scale and at a cost that unlocks access for all the patients in need.”

According to the company, the first GMP doses manufactured on the Cell Shuttle were supplied for Cabaletta Bio’s investigational CAR-T programme and met release specifications before being administered to patients.

The company also highlighted its existing manufacturing agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb, which reserves commercial-scale capacity for cell therapy programmes across facilities in the US, Europe and Japan.

While the financing underlines continued investor interest in advanced therapy manufacturing infrastructure, the long-term commercial success of the platform will depend on wider adoption by drug developers and continued progress through clinical and regulatory milestones.