Case Study: The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult achieves scalable, reproducible qPCR automation and up to 5 hours saved with Synthace's Antha

qPCR for Gene Therapies with the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult

The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, a UK centre supporting development and manufacturing of cell and gene therapies, faced a bottleneck in routine qPCR assays used to quantify viral (AAV) titres: processing >50 samples/week (≈500 reactions) required repetitive manual pipetting and up to 4–5 hours to prepare a 384‑well plate. To overcome limited, inflexible automation and the need for programming expertise, they partnered with Synthace and adopted Synthace’s Antha software platform to automate qPCR workflows.

Using Synthace’s Antha, the team designed, simulated and executed flexible, codeless qPCR workflows on their liquid handler (e.g., Gilson PIPETMAX®), then pinned standardized protocols for wider use. Synthace’s solution cut hands‑on time by up to 5 hours (automated plate setup in ~1h45 with only ~30 minutes total manual input), maintained qPCR quality (efficiency 90–110% and <0.5 Ct between technical replicates), increased samples meeting acceptance criteria (82 vs 76 for samples with Ct<35), and improved throughput, reproducibility and walkaway time.

The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult

Georgie Hermitage

Analytical Development Scientist