Replies to post #494588 on NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[skitahoe]

Bisected,

I believe that what they are saying is that they can put 10 or more units in the space required for one clean room and it only takes about the same amount of time to manage the multiple Flaskworks as a single clean room. The process takes nearly as long.

Gary

[hyperopia]

bio, I’m not sure what you mean by “tie up the entire machine for each batch for days.” That’s the primary purpose of the EDEN system, and mostly all it does- culture each batch for days.

And zero new efficiencies? Do you mean that you think Corning was advertising those 10x efficiencies only after it’s been industrialized?

The Flaskworks’ system, (even the original clinical version) is multiples more efficient and productive than the manual culturing method. It cuts the eleven laborious manual steps from highly trained, and highly paid technicians to six steps, and cuts those highly-paid labor hours from fifteen down to less than three, over the seven-day process.

And no, I don’t agree that the value of the cartridges is “that it should not take up productive space while the cells culture,” I think the real value of the closed cartridges is that it removes the need to isolate and culture a single patient’s cells in it’s own, very expensive class-B cleanroom, and moves manufacturing to a much less expensive class-C controlled environment where an unlimited number of patient’s cells can share an open floor space.

There are other, less-quantifiable benefits, like highly reproducible, consistent results (critical), greatly reduced contamination risks (critical), ability to scale, and the need for less highly-trained staff to operate the system.

I have questioned the accuracy of relying on Corning’s MicroDEN brochure which claims the 10x productivity increase though, as you and others have. And yes, I understand what an ideal industrial process would look like with parallel processing of multiple culturing cartridges, (I’ve described that in other posts) and agree that it would greatly increase productivity, and it will be required to truly scale to the masses. That may very well be the next iterative upgrade being developed, but I don’t think they’re there quite yet, for reasons I won’t get into. You can believe that the Flaskworks system is more developed than was recently pictured though, if that makes more sense to you.