Cellares Cell Shuttle | 2020-2021

Designers: Greg Janky, Treasure Hinds, Sean Horita, and Waymen Yu, Anvil Studios, Inc., Sammamish, Washington, USA
Manufacturer: Cellares, Inc., South San Francisco, California, USA

A factory-in-a-box for industrial scale cell therapy manufacturing.

Cellares is creating the future of cell therapy manufacturing and accelerating access to life-saving cell therapies. The company is developing a one-of-a-kind solution to overcome the limitations associated with manufacturing cell therapies that are more affordable and widely available to patients in need. The Cell Shuttle is an automated and closed end-to-end manufacturing solution that is flexible and scalable, enabling customers to run the exact processes specified for their cell therapy.

Compared with currently available cell therapy manufacturing methods, this next-generation platform enables a three-fold reduction in process failure rates and is capable of producing 10+ patient doses in parallel, which increases manufacturing scalability by an order of magnitude. This will significantly reduce the per-patient manufacturing cost.

Based on the engineering architecture, our ideation phase imagined what this “Cell Shuttle” might look like on the set of sci-fi movies, on the Moon, on Mars, orbiting Jupiter. With the guidance of Cellares leadership, our design explorations narrowed to combine two favorite concepts.

The main body consists of an elongated, octagonal form sculpted with faceted surfaces and graceful contours. This dynamic body intersects with clean, rational geometry to delineate the instruments and refrigeration system. To further highlight the juxtaposition, the contrasting elements are painted glossy white and matte blue respectively.

The front face is the primary user interaction area. We designed a large LED-lit status ring to frame the automated feedthrough; the only way in/ out for the manufactured cell solutions.

The main body is intentionally designed with large viewing windows to draw attention to and allow users to watch the multi-axis robot move the cell therapy containers within the sterile stainless steel environment.

Large service doors showcasing icons each describing their individual processes provide maintenance access to the various instrument bays.