Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science, and Celltrio, a leading manufacturer of robotics-based solutions for the life sciences industry, have announced their collaboration to bring a fully automated cell culture system to biotherapeutics customers.

The collaboration will integrate the Thermo Scientific Momentum workflow scheduling software with the Celltrio RoboCell cell line automation platform to address the critical unmet market need for high-throughput automated cell line culturing and maintenance. Celltrio’s RoboCell systems distributed in Europe will now use Momentum software for work scheduling and data management. Thermo Fisher will also immediately take on exclusive responsibility for sales, installation, and support of the RoboCell system in Europe, with the possibility of extending into other geographies in the future.

“Cell line scale-up challenges have long stifled the full potential of biotherapy research. While researchers have been able to automate some aspects of cell line production, full automation has been well out of reach,” said Hansjoerg Haas, senior director and general manager, laboratory automation, Thermo Fisher Scientific. “By collaborating with Celltrio, we’re bringing together the capabilities that make fully automated cell line culturing a reality. With the ability to effectively scale processes, biotherapeutics customers can focus on getting their innovative therapies to patients, paving the way to a better, healthier world.”

Charlie Duncheon, CEO and co-founder, Celltrio, Inc. said, “The complementary expertise of Thermo Fisher and Celltrio offers a clear, powerful opportunity to help customers overcome a pressing roadblock. By offering Thermo Fisher’s intuitive Momentum workflow scheduling software with Celltrio’s end-to-end automation RoboCell platform, we can expand the RoboCell reach and amplify the impact of both solutions for biotherapeutics customers, benefitting the biopharma market and human health.”

With the Momentum workflow scheduling software, RoboCell users may define, execute, and monitor processes and workflows with an easy-to-use interface. The software’s intelligent data-driven decision-making capabilities and bi-directional communication also enable secure connectivity and traceability while ensuring laboratories boost their performance.