Made Scientific, a Princeton-based cell therapy contract development and manufacturing company, and Sentinel BioTherapeutics, a Houston clinical-stage biotechnology company advancing encapsulated cell-based immunotherapies for solid tumors, announced a strategic manufacturing partnership to support the Phase I/II clinical development of Sentinel’s SENT-001.
SENT-001 is an allogeneic, encapsulated cell therapy leveraging genetically engineered allogeneic ARPE-19 cells to enable delivery of native human IL-2 (interleukin-2) to the peritoneal or pleural cavities.
The therapy was previously evaluated under a multicenter, open-label Phase I study for patients with high-grade serous adenocarcinoma of the ovary, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneum. Sentinel BioTherapeutics is the first spinout of RBL LLC, a Houston-based biotech accelerator focused on accelerating novel therapeutic delivery technologies to clinics.
As part of the collaboration, Made Scientific will establish a master cell bank and support both process optimization and clinical drug product manufacturing of SENT-001 as an off-the-shelf product. This will enable Sentinel’s phase I/II study to include re-dosing and combinations with targeted immunotherapy drugs. The drug product manufacturing strategy introduces a closed, scalable production model designed to enhance operational efficiency, increase throughput, and reduce both manufacturing time and overall cost of goods.
This approach facilitates clinical scalability and strengthens the therapy’s long-term economic sustainability by automating manufacturing workflows, minimizing resource requirements, and maximizing drug product yield.
“This partnership builds on our shared track record of innovation and delivery,” said Syed T. Husain, chairman & CEO of Made Scientific. “It also leverages Made’s newly established Princeton site — purpose-built to support partners like Sentinel from early clinical development through late-stage and commercial manufacturing.”
“This partnership represents a significant step forward in our mission to bring localized immunotherapies to patients with hard-to-treat solid tumors,” said Rima Chakrabarti, CEO of Sentinel BioTherapeutics. “Made’s deep cell therapy expertise and agile GMP execution capabilities will accelerate our progress as we advance SENT-001 through Phase I/II development. As RBL’s first spinout company, we are demonstrating how the right strategic partnerships can rapidly translate breakthrough medical technologies from concept to clinic, making these innovative treatments accessible to the patients who need them most.”
Made Scientific, rebranded from BioCentriq in March and relaunched as Made Scientific, operates two manufacturing facilities in New Jersey. In May, Made Scientific announced that it is expanding its Princeton facility with an additional 9,000 square feet of manufacturing space in two phases, beginning in the second quarter this year. The expansion aims to support late-stage and commercial cell-therapy programs, increasing manufacturing by up to 2,000 batches annually.
