WELLINGTON, New Zealand and KINGSTON, Ontario, April 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BioOra Limited ("BioOra"), a commercial-stage cell therapy company advancing CAR-T therapies for cancer patients, and Octane Biotech Inc., an Octane Medical Group Company ("Octane"), today announced the signing of a Letter of Intent (LOI) to collaborate on the co-development and deployment of advanced cell therapies using the Cocoon® automated cell therapy manufacturing platform.

The collaboration builds upon the existing partnership through which BioOra’s CD19-targeted CAR-T therapy (Atla-Cel) is produced by Octane's Cocoon Platform for patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell lymphoma in New Zealand as part of the registration trial (ENABLE-2). Under the agreement, BioOra and Octane will work together to expand manufacturing capacity to support BioOra’s regional growth, beginning with Australia and extending to additional international markets.

Octane is advancing the Cocoon Platform to enable efficient, decentralized scaling of cell therapy manufacturing. In parallel, BioOra is constructing a bespoke cell therapy manufacturing facility in Christchurch New Zealand, the BioOra Health & Technology Centre, designed to concurrently operate Cocoon systems to meet growing regional demand for CAR-T and other advanced cell therapies. By leveraging the automated and integrated design of the Cocoon Platform, the collaboration is expected to improve operational efficiency, increase manufacturing throughput, and reduce vein-to-vein time, supporting a new model for delivering personalized cell therapies.

“BioOra has demonstrated that manufacturing using the Cocoon Platform can support the commercial delivery of CAR-T therapy in New Zealand,” said John Robson, Chief Executive Officer of BioOra. “Our new Christchurch facility is designed to scale this model using multiple Cocoon systems. Partnering with Octane allows us to expand into Australia and beyond while improving efficiency and increasing patient access.”

“Octane was founded to unlock the full potential of cell therapy production,” said Timothy Smith, CEO and co-founder of Octane. “BioOra is setting the standard for how this model can be deployed at scale. By combining Cocoon-enabled automation with BioOra’s leading clinical and manufacturing infrastructure, we are building a more efficient, scalable paradigm that has the potential to redefine access to cell therapies globally.”

The collaboration is also expected to expand international patient access through therapy delivery in New Zealand, and potentially in Australia, where BioOra is establishing partnerships to deliver CAR-T therapies to the large number of patients who do not have access in their home countries.

As part of the collaboration, BioOra and Octane intend to develop closed, integrated, end-to-end manufacturing solutions spanning cell collection, automated processing, and final product release for BioOra cell therapy products. These innovations are designed to simplify manufacturing workflows, further improving the accessibility and practicality of CAR-T therapy.

“CAR-T therapies have demonstrated extraordinary potential to cure otherwise lethal cancers, but scaling access has been limited by manufacturing complexity,” said Laurence Cooper, MD, PhD, CAR-T pioneer, and Board Member of BioOra. “Aligning automation with advanced therapeutics through the Cocoon Platform can dramatically expand access. This collaboration fits directly with BioOra’s vision of becoming the first commercial CAR-T company in the Southern Hemisphere, bringing these transformative therapies to far more patients.”

The collaboration will focus on:

• Scaling BioOra’s CAR-T manufacturing operations in New Zealand using the Cocoon Platform
• Expanding manufacturing into Australia and North America to support regional patient access
• Developing additional cell therapy programs for deployment on the Cocoon Platform
• Co-developing production efficiencies to further automate CAR-T manufacturing solutions

The companies expect to formalize additional development and commercialization agreements following the execution of definitive collaboration agreements.

About BioOra
BioOra is a cell therapy company headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, focused on bringing transformative immunotherapies to patients across New Zealand, Australia, and beyond. The company is commercializing CAR-T therapies for hematologic malignancies while building regional infrastructure for the manufacturing of advanced cell therapies.

Atla-cel is a CD19-targeted CAR-T therapy for relapsed or refractory B-cell lymphoma, an area of significant unmet medical need. The ongoing ENABLE-2 Phase 2 trial is over halfway enrolled, supporting BioOra’s path toward regulatory approval and commercialization beginning with New Zealand. Atla-cel forms a core pillar of BioOra’s strategy to establish a regional hub for advanced cell therapy manufacturing spanning New Zealand, Australia, and ultimately global markets.

About Octane Biotech Inc., An Octane Medical Group Company
Octane Biotech Inc. is a biotechnology company focused on enabling scalable manufacturing solutions for advanced cell and gene therapies. Through customized solutions enabled by the Cocoon® automated cell therapy platform, Octane works with partners to deploy manufacturing models that expand global access to next-generation therapies.

Headquartered in Ontario, Canada, the Octane Medical Group has locations in the United States and Europe. As a global group of companies, the Octane Medical Group offers the most advanced bioprocesses, biomaterials and bioreactors for regenerative medicine. We power transformative healthcare with game-changing technologies that we develop and turn into proof-of-concept platforms. These innovations are advanced into production within our market-specific Octane ventures and then launched for commercialization with our global partners. Today, our Octane ventures include Octane Innovation, Octane Clinical Systems, Octane Orthobiologics, Octane Exo, Octane Biotech and Octane Biotherapeutics (BioTx).

At Octane, our goal is to make regenerative medicine the standard of care. For more information, visit www.octaneco.com.

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