Mytos announces $19 million series A funding to automate human cell manufacturing

The funding will accelerate the manufacturing and distribution of the Mytos’ automated cell production system to more biotech and pharma companies.

The company’s platform is already in use by a number of life sciences companies. Mytos also has plans to expand its sales and development team.

“The most tedious process in biotech is growing human cells by hand. Every scientist needs to spend hours a day growing cells and coming in on weekends to look after them,” said Ali Afshar, CEO of Mytos.

In response, the company has developed a system that fully automates the process of human cell production.

“With our automated system, our customers love the fact that it’s a simple setup, and they can check how their cells are growing on the weekends from their phone instead of going into the lab,” Afshar added.

“Usually it takes months for an automated system to replicate a manual process, but our system is a same-day setup. This new funding will allow us to accelerate our roll-out to reach more customers, speed up their development of life-saving cures, and expand into cell therapy manufacturing.”

Whether at a large pharma or early-stage startup, scientists do not have a viable solution to the process of manually growing human cells – which can delay the speed of drug development, the company said.  

According to Mytos, its automated cell production system ‘streamlines this intricate process’, integrating tasks such as imaging, passaging, and media replenishment into an automated workflow.

The technology has the ability to free up scientists’ time, decrease the risk for human error and contamination, and improves the yield of high-quality cells, the company added.

The system can produce a range of cell types from brain to heart cells. Beginning with stem cells, it can also manufacture heart cells that spontaneously start beating after 12 days, Mytos said. 

Wali Malik, senior director, lab automation at Tessera Therapeutics, commented: "Traditional attempts at automating this process using robotic arms have fallen short in practice, due to low precision, sterilization challenges, and limitations growing more complex cells.

“Mytos' unique approach to cell manufacturing is simple and easy to set up. It combines intricate fluidics, high-performance microscopy, and temperature control, to ensure precise and efficient hands-free cell culture where scientists can monitor virtually 7 days a week on their mobile devices, without having to go into the labs on weekends to check on the cells.”