Cellares Raises $257 Million Series D Led by BlackRock and Eclipse to Industrialize Global Cell Therapy Manufacturing with Breakthrough Automation

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 28, 2026--

Cellares, the first Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization (IDMO), today announced a $257 million Series D financing co‑led by investment funds managed by BlackRock and Eclipse, bringing the company’s total capital raised to $612 million.

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The Series D adds a new group of leading global investors, including accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Investment Management, Inc., Baillie Gifford, Duquesne Family Office, Intuitive Ventures, EDBI, and Gates Frontier, alongside continued participation from existing backers DC Global Ventures, DFJ Growth, and Willett Advisors.

​“Cellares is building the high-tech, industrial backbone required for cell therapy to scale globally,” said Andrew Farris, Managing Director at BlackRock. “Validated and cutting-edge automation, regulatory recognition, and growing commercial demand make Cellares a category‑defining platform in a rapidly growing global market projected to reach tens of billions of dollars per year over the coming decade.”

The round will fund the global buildout of automated IDMO Smart Factories across South San Francisco, CA; Bridgewater, NJ; Leiden, the Netherlands; and Kashiwa City, Japan, to enable commercial launch and unconstrained manufacturing of cell therapies for hundreds of thousands of patients annually.​

“For decades, cell therapy manufacturing has been constrained by artisanal, manual processes,” said Joe Fath, Partner and Head of Growth at Eclipse. “Cellares has shown that integrated and high-throughput automation can meet regulatory standards, support commercial programs, and scale globally to unlock life-saving cell therapies for hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide.”

Cellares expects to support clinical manufacturing in the first half of 2026, with commercial-scale manufacturing beginning in 2027.

“The barrier to curing more patients is no longer scientific — it is industrial,” said Fabian Gerlinghaus, Co-Founder and CEO of Cellares. “With FDA validation, global commercial demand, and the capital to scale, we are building the high-tech infrastructure required to deliver cures and life-changing treatments worldwide. This financing puts Cellares on a clear, disciplined path toward becoming a public company.”

Cellares’ IDMO model replaces manual labor‑intensive contract manufacturing with the most advanced technologies for manufacturing and quality control — fully automated, GMP-compliant and ready for clinical and commercial use. The company’s Cell Shuttle™ system delivers end‑to‑end, closed‑system cell therapy production, while its Cell Q™ platform automates in‑process and release testing for thousands of patients per year. Together, these systems provide up to roughly 10‑fold higher throughput and lower per‑patient costs compared with conventional CDMO facilities of similar scale.​ Where conventional CDMOs need to build 10 facilities to achieve commercial-scale capacity, Cellares needs to build one facility. Where conventional CDMOs need to hire and train thousands of employees, Cellares needs to hire hundreds.

The platform has automated various cell therapy processes and modalities across biotechnology and pharmaceutical partners. Cellares entered into a $380 million global manufacturing agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb, reserving commercial‑scale capacity in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The Cell Shuttle™ has also received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT) designation, which can enable expedited review of regulatory submissions that incorporate the platform.​

About Cellares

Cellares is an Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization (IDMO) focused on the automated, large-scale manufacture of cell therapies. The company provides global biopharmaceutical partners with development and commercial manufacturing services designed to address the capacity, consistency, and cost limitations of traditional, labor-intensive production models.

Cellares operates fully automated manufacturing and quality control platforms — Cell Shuttle™ for end-to-end cell therapy manufacturing and Cell Q™ for automated in-process and release testing — across its network of IDMO Smart Factories. These cGMP-compliant systems enable higher process reproducibility, improved manufacturing success rates, and up to approximately 10x higher throughput compared to conventional CDMO approaches with similar footprint and headcount.

Headquartered in South San Francisco, California, Cellares operates a commercial-scale Smart Factory in Bridgewater, New Jersey, with additional facilities under construction in Europe and Japan. For more information, visit cellares.com and follow Cellares on LinkedIn.

Cellares Raises $257 Million Series D Led by BlackRock and Eclipse to Industrialize Global Cell Therapy Manufacturing with Breakthrough Automation

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man who once escaped custody and spent three days on the run after being sentenced to death for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend received a lethal injection Wednesday, becoming the first person executed in the United States this year.

Charles Victor Thompson, 55, was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CST following the injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the April 1998 shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend, Glenda Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her new boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30, at the woman's suburban Houston apartment.

In his final words, Thompson asked the families of his victims to find it in their hearts to forgive him, adding “that you can begin to heal and move past this.”

“There are no winners in this situation,” he said after a spiritual adviser prayed over him for about 3 minutes and shortly before a lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered. He said his execution “creates more victims and traumatizes more people 28 years later.”

“I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for what happened, and I want to tell all of y’all, I love you and that keep Jesus in your life, keep Jesus first,” he added.

As the injection began taking effect, Thompson gasped loudly, then took about a dozen breaths that evolved into three snores. Then all movement ceased and he was pronounced dead 22 minutes later.

“He’s in hell,” one of the witnesses, Dennis Cain — whose son was killed — said after Thompson was declared dead by a physician.

“This chapter is closed,” Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare, whose office prosecuted the case, said after watching Thompson die. ”It was justice a long time coming."

According to court records, Hayslip and Darren Cain were dating when Thompson came to Hayslip’s apartment and began arguing with Cain around 3 a.m. the night of the killings. Police were called and told Thompson to leave the apartment complex. He returned three hours later and shot both Hayslip and Cain.

Cain died at the scene, and Hayslip died in a hospital a week later.“

About an hour before the scheduled 6 p.m. execution, the U.S. Supreme Court — without explanation — issued a brief order rejecting Thompson’s final appeal. On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had denied Thompson’s request to commute his death sentence to a lesser penalty.

Thompson’s attorneys had argued in filings with the Supreme Court that he was not allowed to refute or confront the prosecution’s evidence that concluded Hayslip died from a gunshot wound to the face. Thompson’s attorneys argued that Hayslip actually died from flawed medical care she received after the shooting that resulted in severe brain damage sustained from oxygen deprivation following a failed intubation.

Prosecutors had said a jury had already rejected the claim by Thompson and decided under state law he was responsible for Hayslip’s death because it “would not have occurred but for his conduct.”

Hayslip’s family had filed a lawsuit against one of her doctors, alleging that medical negligence during her treatment left her brain-dead. A jury in 2002 found in favor of the doctor.

Thompson had his original death sentence overturned and a new punishment trial was held in November 2005. A jury again ordered him to die by lethal injection.

Shortly after being resentenced, Thompson escaped from the Harris County Jail in Houston by walking out the front door virtually unchallenged by deputies. He later told The Associated Press that after meeting with his attorney in a small interview cell, he slipped out of his handcuffs and orange jail jumpsuit and left the room, which was unlocked. Thompson waived an ID badge fashioned out of his prison ID card to get past several deputies.

“I got to smell the trees, feel the wind in my hair, grass under my feet, see the stars at night. It took me straight back to childhood being outside on a summer night,” Thompson said of his time on the run, speaking with AP in a 2005 interview. He was arrested in Shreveport, Louisiana, while trying to arrange for wire transfers of money from overseas so he could make it to Canada.

Texas has historically held more executions than any other state though Florida had the most in 2025 with 19. The next execution in the U.S. is scheduled to be the Feb. 10 lethal injection of Ronald Palmer Health, who was convicted of killing a traveling salesman during a 1989 robbery in the Gainesville area of that state.

Lozano reported from Houston. Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70

This photo provided by Texas Department of Criminal Justice. shows Texas death row inmate Charles Victor Thompson. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP)