A new ‘thaw’ght process: GE Healthcare’s offering addresses cell therapy challenges

GE Healthcare, provider of transformational medical technologies and services, has introduced the first in its VIA Thaw series, the VIA Thaw CB1000, which offers automated, dry thawing of cryo-bags to address cell therapy challenges.

This new range of dry thawing units has been designed to overcome inconsistencies associated with traditional water bath thawing practice and, the company reports that these systems provide users with control over the thawing of sensitive therapies.

“As the number of cell therapies increases, GE Healthcare has been focusing on creating solutions that safeguard the manufacture and delivery of these therapies. The new VIA Thaw series will provide certainty in cell thawing, through an automated, dry process, and complete visibility over the thawing procedure,” stated Ger Brophy, general manager, Cell Therapy, GE Healthcare. “This technology has the ability to transform the final stage of cell therapy and help advance the industrialisation and delivery of these potentially life-saving therapies.”

Maintenance of cell potency through manufacture and cryogenic cold chain (cryochain) of cell therapies is a major challenges. The last part of the cryochain process, cell thawing, is notably difficult to control as the traditional methods of water bath thawing can prove inconsistent and give rise to water-borne contamination. As a result of these challenges, the UK-based cell therapy organisation, Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, approached Asymptote (now part of GE Healthcare) to assist in finding a solution.

GE Healthcare’s VIA Thaw CB1000, which is currently commercially available, combines automation with dry conduction thawing and enables the thaw endpoint to be precisely determined. Thaw profiles are customisable and can be transmitted to thawers across multiple sites. Additionally, all VIA Thaw CB1000 units have a ‘lock-down’ option to limit the operator to a single pre-set profile. Electronic data logging creates a record of each step in the thawing process and enables sources of variation to be identified. All thaw units integrate with the GE’s digital my.Cryochain platform, for standardisation and auditing of thaw processes.

This series of thawers are for research use only and are not medical devices.