OrganaBio has opened a new PBMC processing and cryopreservation laboratory at Excellos Labs in San Diego, expanding rapid clinical sample processing in Southern California. The laboratory marks the first service expansion through Excellos Labs since OrganaBio acquired the operating assets of Excellos, Inc. in May 2026.
The new laboratory supports time-sensitive PBMC isolation in one of the country’s major cell and gene therapy hubs. Its location near research institutions, clinical research centers, and cell and gene therapy developers aims to provide faster support for Southern California clinical sites that require rapid processing of clinical trial samples.
With the expansion, sponsors can receive cryopreserved samples within three to four hours of collection. OrganaBio notes that this timing plays a critical role in maintaining cell viability and function. The company reports an average PBMC viability of 99.1 percent and PBMC recovery exceeding 2.9 x 10^6/mL. A trained team qualified across internal and sponsor-specific SOPs supports the workflow.
Working in analytical science?
Register for a FREE Separation Science account to subscribe to the Separation Science Newsletter.
OrganaBio’s operators isolate PBMCs from leukopaks and whole blood as part of the company’s cellular starting material business. Team members also travel between sites to support consistency, reproducibility, and quality across the network.
“Standing up rapid PBMC processing at Excellos Labs means that sponsors running trials across Southern California can now access the same high-viability sample processing our partners rely on coast to coast, with no tradeoff between speed and quality,” comments Justin Irizarry, CEO of OrganaBio. “This is only the first example of the many cross-organizational benefits we can leverage to enhance our partners’ experience, as we continue to merge operations between OrganaBio and Excellos Labs.”
OrganaBio now operates three West Coast laboratories alongside its headquarters, giving sponsors coast-to-coast coverage as clinical programs scale and expand geographically.
The company’s combined platform provides GMP isolated cells, clinical-sample processing including PBMC isolation, cell isolation and cryopreservation services, cGMP manufacturing for autologous and allogeneic cell therapies, process development, analytical testing, quality assurance, and regulatory support under one quality framework.
Excellos Labs is OrganaBio’s San Diego operation. Founded in 2021 as an independent spinout of the San Diego Blood Bank, Excellos built a full-service cell therapy facility in downtown San Diego with five ISO 7 cGMP cleanroom suites. The site supports autologous and allogeneic cell therapy manufacturing, apheresis donor cell collection, cell isolation and enrichment, transduction, expansion, fill/finish, and cryopreservation.
This article is based on a press release issued by OrganaBio.
