Client success story
Cell Therapy Lab Automation
Business Value Delivered: Effective & Scaled-Up Protocol Optimization
Summary: Automation Enables Efficient Assay Refinement
A mid-size biopharma company was developing cell therapies but couldn’t scale their assays due to the complexities of the protocols and excess manual steps in the process. bPrescient designed a system that refined usage of their existing lab tracking system and incorporated targeted custom tools focused on meeting key user needs. The system allowed the client to scale up their protocol testing efforts to develop a more efficient therapeutic development process.
Challenge: Complex Assays Difficult To Run At Scale
The client was developing cell therapies that involved complex protocols for producing cell populations for clinical testing and treatment. Refining the protocols involved running a large number of experimental protocols and this process was difficult to manage with their existing electronic lab notebook (ELN) system. The client was relying on error-prone manual processes and spreadsheets, which led to inefficiencies and delays in testing sets of protocols.
Solution: Existing Tools Leveraged In Combination With New Capabilities
The client had an existing ELN system with some limited customizations. The bPrescient team of business analysts, software architects and ELN experts modelled the data and processes needed to scale up assays and designed a system that incorporated new data structures into the lab notebook. The solution also incorporated a custom tool for scientists to design protocol variants at scale to support plate-based testing. The custom tool used APIs to store data in the lab notebook system that maintained centralized and controlled data storage, which supported downstream analytics and compliance requirements.
Outcome: New Design Supported Scaled-Up Protocol Testing
With the new system, the client was able to run large numbers of protocol variants, compare outputs, and identify improvements more rapidly. Centralized storage of assay designs, experiment structures, and results gave scientists a clear view of which changes drove performance, ultimately accelerating cell-therapy process development and reducing reliance on manual workflows.
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