Replies to post #494059 on NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[skitahoe]

Every picture, etc. I've seen on the FlaskWorks unit has been designed to only support a single cassette. I believe the key to the units are the pumps which only touch the tubes on the cartridge, like the IV pumps in a hospital, they never are in direct contact with the fluid. I believe there are two such pumps for each FlaskWorks units.

Would it be possible to build a device that had many such pumps, say 100 of them, then 50 cassettes could be operated from such a device, anything is possible, but that's not anything that's ever been shown and frankly I think there is a basic simplicity to one unit per one cassette.

In that the vaccine in the cassette never actually is in contact with the unit I don't know what sort of maintainance should be required of the unit between removing a completed cassette and loading a new one.

I see it as a fairly simple, and elegant way of generating personalized products.

Gary

[hyperopia]

bio, I’m assuming the pictures of the Flaskworks EDEN system from the ASCO slides are current. That’s clearly not the original version, and it has been developed for commercial use with what appears to be additional sensors and bio analyzers and other electronics, but yes, it has a cartridge for a single patient, and it appears to be in an incubator. So this is still a bench-top version 2.0, which has the minimum required upgrade that would be necessary for commercialization: digitization for in-process monitoring and controls, and data capture of all the culturing information for the Electronic Batch Record. Agree that it’s far from ideal, but it’s a big accomplishment for Shashi Murthy and his team, and I certainly don’t want to diminish it. I’m sure there will be continued development of the process and Flaskworks’ system going forward.

I think automating the entire process will likely cut the total manufacturing time from 8 days to 7 days, but the cells will culture for ~5 days in the differentiation media, and another half day in the maturation media. I don't think it's possible to speed that part up more than has already been done.