OrganaBio Acquires Excellos Operating Assets, Establishing a Coast-to-Coast Cell Therapy Contract Testing, Development and Manufacturing Organization

New organization leverages manufacturing, PBMC isolation, and cryopreservation services across multiple facilities, supporting cell therapy programs from preclinical through commercial supply

Core Excellos team retained; existing customer programs to continue without interruption

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OrganaBio, LLC ("OrganaBio"), a manufacturer of GMP cells and blood products and provider of cell isolation and cryopreservation services, has acquired substantially all of the operating assets of San Diego-based Excellos Inc. to create a bicoastal cell therapy contract development and manufacturing organization. Newly formed OrganaBio subsidiary Excellos Labs, LLC (“Excellos Labs”) will be responsible for San Diego operations going forward. The acquisition creates a more comprehensive cell therapy service provider, combining complementary capabilities in addition to expanding geographic coverage.

OrganaBio will continue to support developers working with both organizations, improving timely access to critical starting materials and manufacturing redundancy within a single relationship.

The company’s combined platform now spans multiple facilities across the U.S. OrganaBio’s Miami headquarters anchors the East Coast with adult leukapheresis (via its HemaCenter subsidiary), birth tissue and cord blood sourcing (via its GaiaGift subsidiary), ISO 7 cGMP cleanrooms, process development, QC/analytical testing, PBMC isolation, and cryopreservation. On the West Coast, OrganaBio operates cell processing and cryopreservation labs in San Francisco and Irvine, California, and now adds Excellos’ downtown San Diego facility, a purpose-built site with five ISO 7 cGMP cleanroom suites supporting autologous and allogeneic cell therapy manufacturing, cell isolation and enrichment, expansion, and fill/finish. The core Excellos team has been retained to help ensure existing Excellos customer programs will continue uninterrupted.

The new OrganaBio is positioned to address a structural challenge for cell therapy developers and organizations requiring PBMC isolation and cryopreservation services. Dependency on a single source for PBMC isolation and cryopreservation services creates risk in supply chains, while splitting volume across multiple vendors introduces quality risks such as lot-to-lot variability and inconsistent process execution across sites. OrganaBio now offers bicoastal cGMP manufacturing, PBMC isolation for clinical trial samples, and cryopreservation of patient leukopaks ahead of manufacturing, all operating under a single quality framework. This means the company can now deliver the geographic and infrastructure redundancy customers need without the trade-offs that typically come with it, shortening the path from cell therapy development to patients waiting for these treatments.

The combined customer base includes many of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies along with a broad set of public and private biotechnology developers. Therapeutic programs supported across the platform are concentrated in cancer and autoimmune indications, spanning autologous and allogeneic cell therapies in clinical and commercial development.

"Cell therapy developers and the patients waiting on their programs need a manufacturing partner that can match the pace and quality of their work. Combining OrganaBio’s and Excellos’ infrastructure and teams lets us do that more reliably than either company could alone," said Justin Irizarry, CEO of OrganaBio. "Our priority in the coming months is operational continuity for every customer of both companies, with broader capabilities layered in as integration progresses."

"This acquisition is the best of both worlds, ensuring continuity for Excellos' customers as we move into our next phase while adding critical redundancy, expanded geographical reach, and access to additional services and material including cord blood," said Tom VanCott, CEO of Excellos.

In the near term, both organizations will maintain existing operations for customers and partners. Full integration is expected over the next 12 months, with a focus on operational speed and quality, expanding services, and supporting continued growth across the combined platform.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About OrganaBio

OrganaBio, LLC is a vertically integrated cell therapy contract development and manufacturing organization (CTDMO) headquartered in Miami, Florida, with cGMP manufacturing and cell processing facilities in Miami and San Diego and regional cell processing labs in San Francisco and Irvine. Through its wholly owned, FDA-registered subsidiaries – HemaCenter, LLC (adult leukapheresis) and GaiaGift, LLC (birth tissue and cord blood) – OrganaBio operates proprietary supply chains for ethically sourced human tissues and blood-derived cellular products. The combined platform delivers GMP isolated cells, clinical-sample processing including PBMC isolation, cell isolation and cryopreservation services, cGMP manufacturing for autologous and allogeneic cell therapies, process development, analytical testing, quality assurance, and regulatory support under a single quality framework, enabling cell therapy developers to accelerate the path from development to patient. For more information, visit www.organabio.com.

About Excellos

Excellos was founded in 2021 as an independent spinout of the San Diego Blood Bank. A full-service cell therapy contract development and manufacturing organization based in downtown San Diego, Excellos delivers apheresis donor cell collection, cell processing, cell isolation and enrichment, transduction, expansion, fill/finish, and third-party cryopreservation services under cGMP across five ISO 7 cleanroom suites. Following the acquisition, Excellos operations continue as Excellos Labs, an OrganaBio subsidiary. For more information, visit www.excellos.com.