Discovery Life Sciences’ acquisition of AllCells expected to improve cell, gene therapy applications

HUNTSVILLE – Two Huntsville biomedical companies merged their resources and expertise to provide faster and more reliable cell and gene therapy products and services. Discovery Life Sciences, a biospecimen and biomarker specialist on the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology campus in Cummings Research Park, acquired AllCells, a provider of clinical-grade and research use only primary cell products.

The new company, AllCells, a Discovery Life Sciences Company, is a premier industry provider of CGT products and services to accelerate cell and gene therapy applications.

“We are very excited to welcome the AllCells team to the Discovery family,” said Discovery CEO Glenn Bilawsky. “Bringing these two great companies together creates a scalable, end-to-end solution that gives our clients unprecedented access to reliable human cellular starting materials with integrated multi-omic analytic services to support cell and gene therapies.”

AllCells CEO and President Danny Zheng has taken the new company’s reins.

“We have built our organization to be an extension of our client’s supply chain,” said Zheng “By offering donor program consulting, high-quality apheresis collections, customization services, and GMP-compliant starting materials, our dedicated team will continue to provide a high-touch, client-focused approach to ensure our clients’ needs are met with superior products and services to fit any timeline and on any scale.

“Our strategy parallels and reinforces Discovery’s ‘Science at your Service’ approach, and our unified offerings will further accelerate our clients’ strategic and vital cell and gene therapy programs.”

With more than 30 years of collective cell and gene therapy experience, AllCells and Discovery will focus on providing revolutionary products and services with greater speed and reliability to satisfy the entire CGT continuum ─ from basic discovery through commercialization.

The combination of Discovery’s growing CGT business with AllCells also creates one of the industry’s largest dedicated client donor pools.

The FDA-registered donor collection facilities and GMP-compliant cleanrooms are adjacent to characterization labs. This proximity enables immediate processing and cryopreservation ― providing customers faster and more cost-effective access to a larger, engaged donor pool for client-specific programs.

Dominic Clarke, Discovery’s chief technical officer for CGT, said CGT’s impact on patient health is unquestionable.

“Improvements in manufacturing and reproducibility are needed to expand addressable patient populations, and enhance treatment paradigms,” said Clarke. “Our solution delivers access to the entire continuum from RUO to GMP starting materials, informed by integrated, comprehensive characterization at scale, to support these rapidly expanding needs of the industry.”