FlowCytoNews
Flow cytometry, gated weekly.
ISSUE #3 · FRIDAY EDITION · INDUSTRY MOVES · OCT 9, 2026
Welcome to the Friday edition of FlowCytoNews. Friday is Industry Moves: what instrument, reagent, CRO, CDMO and cell-therapy companies did this week, with the primary source linked and every job opened before it ran. Monday is The Literature and Wednesday is On the Calendar. This week a CRO and Waters teamed up on flow-based companion diagnostics, ARUP got supercomputer time for a flow cytometry foundation model, and another allogeneic CAR-T developer stepped back. Tell us what we missed — hit reply.
■ Industry Moves
Instruments & software
CellCarta and Waters will chase flow-based companion diagnostics together, starting with China
CellCarta announced a strategic partnership with Waters on Oct 5, "creating a framework to jointly pursue companion diagnostic (CDx) and next-generation flow cytometry opportunities." The work will "initially emphasize flow cytometry-based programs." The release singles out CellCarta's CAP-accredited lab in Jining, China, which runs BD flow cytometry platforms, as a way for sponsors to include China in multinational CDx and biomarker programs. Todd Chermak, President of CellCarta, and Brent Gaylord, VP/GM Reagents at Waters Biosciences, are quoted. Financial terms are undisclosed.
▪ CellCarta · Oct 5 · PR Newswire release
Why it matters: A flow assay that becomes a companion diagnostic is locked to an instrument, a reagent lot strategy and a lab network for the life of the drug. If you are scoping a CDx program with a flow readout, this is one more CRO-plus-platform pairing to put on the comparison sheet.
ARUP is building a foundation model for clinical flow cytometry on Utah's new AI supercomputer
ARUP Laboratories said on Oct 6 that its project "Scaling EventHorizon with Redtail: A Foundation Model for Clinical Flow Cytometry" was selected for the Redtail AI Factory challenge. Redtail is a statewide AI supercomputing system managed by the University of Utah, "funded by a $50 million public-private partnership," with hardware from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and NVIDIA. The team is led by David Ng, ARUP's medical director of Hematopathology, Hematologic Flow Cytometry, and Applied Artificial Intelligence and Bioinformatics. "The tool aims to assist pathologists in analyzing complex flow cytometry data," and access to Redtail "will enable the team to accelerate development of a proprietary foundation model." No timeline or dataset size was given.
▪ ARUP Laboratories · Oct 6 · ARUP news
Why it matters: ARUP's Brendan O'Fallon was on the program for the ICCS AI plenary on Oct 6. A reference lab training a model on its own flow archive is the route by which AI gating reaches sign-out, and "proprietary" means other labs will get it as a service, not as software.
Quick hits — instruments & software
Standard BioTools filed Amendment No. 2 to the S-4 for its Treeline merger, dated Oct 9. It proposes a reverse split "in the range from 1-for-20 to 1-for-40, inclusive," leaves pre-merger Standard BioTools holders with about 16% of the combined company, and still expects closing in Q4 2026. The combined company will be called Treeline Biosciences; the CyTOF/Hyperion sale to Element Biosystems is unchanged. S-4/A on EDGAR
No news in the window from Cytek, Beckman Coulter, Thermo Fisher flow, Sony, Bio-Rad, Miltenyi, Sartorius or the analysis-software companies. Thermo Fisher reports Q3 on Oct 21 and Revvity on Nov 3.
Reagents & controls
Bio-Techne opened a GMP plant in Bristol for cell-therapy small molecules
Bio-Techne opened a "purpose-built 10,000-square-foot Bristol facility" with "five ISO-8 multifunctional cleanrooms and two ISO-7 cleanrooms dedicated to GMP small molecule manufacturing and product handling," announced Oct 8. It is already running and "is manufacturing GMP-grade small molecules that support customers developing next-generation cell therapies worldwide." CEO Kim Kelderman said success "increasingly depends on the ability to manufacture therapies consistently and at scale." The Merck KGaA acquisition of Bio-Techne is still pending.
▪ Bio-Techne · Oct 8 · PR Newswire release
No flow-reagent launches in the window from BioLegend/Revvity, BD Horizon, Thermo eBioscience, Biotium, Cell Signaling, Abcam or the bead makers.
Biopharma, CROs & CDMOs
Caribou plans to stop both allogeneic CAR-T programs and look for a buyer or partner
Caribou Biosciences said on Oct 6 that it will evaluate strategic alternatives and "plans to discontinue further development activities for its two allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy programs," vispa-cel in B-cell lymphoma and CB-011 in multiple myeloma, with a workforce reduction "expected to be mostly complete in the fourth quarter of 2026." "As of June 30, 2026, Caribou had $113.8 million in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities." CEO Rachel Haurwitz said vispa-cel "is pivotal trial-ready," but "the current financing environment for allogeneic CAR-T cell therapies has made it increasingly challenging to secure the capital necessary." Wedbush is advising. The size of the layoff is undisclosed.
▪ Caribou Biosciences · Oct 6 · GlobeNewswire release
Why it matters: Allogeneic programs are heavy flow users: donor screening, HLA and TCR-knockout purity, persistence. When they stall, cell-therapy QC and translational flow roles in the Bay Area go with them.
NeoGenomics pre-announced about $209M for Q3 and named its next CEO
NeoGenomics said on Oct 5 that it "expects to report third quarter total revenue of approximately $209 million," including NGS revenue growth of about 28% year over year. It reiterated full-year guidance and pointed to "an expected increase to full year total revenue guidance" on the Q3 call. President and COO Warren Stone becomes CEO on Jan 4, 2027. Tony Zook stays CEO through Jan 3 and then becomes Executive Chair, and Lynn Tetrault steps down as Board Chair.
▪ NeoGenomics · Oct 5 · 8-K Exhibit 99.1
Quick hits — biopharma, CROs & CDMOs
Charles River and Autolomous launched Apollo Orchestrate, a digital laboratory execution system for GMP QC testing at Charles River Biologics Testing Solutions sites in North America and Europe. Terms undisclosed. Business Wire, Oct 6
Autolus will present updated Phase 1 CARLYSLE data for obe-cel in severe refractory lupus, "with up to 20 months follow-up in adult patients and ≥3 months follow-up in adolescent patients," as a poster at ACR Convergence on Tue Nov 10, 10:30 am–12:30 pm ET. GlobeNewswire, Oct 5
Hiring — instruments, reagents & CROs
Company | Role | Location · pay |
|---|---|---|
Cytek Biosciences | Field, West Coast · $143–179K Bay Area; $132–165K SoCal; $120–160K Seattle | |
Cytek Biosciences | Fremont, CA · pay not confirmed | |
Thermo Fisher Scientific | Los Angeles, field · $66–99K | |
Revvity (BioLegend) | San Diego · $91–120K | |
Revvity (BioLegend) | San Diego · $90–100K | |
Precision for Medicine | Frederick, MD · $203.2–304.8K | |
Precision for Medicine | Frederick, MD · pay not shown | |
Frontage Laboratories | Exton, PA · pay not shown | |
KCAS Bio | Philadelphia · pay not shown | |
IQVIA | Valencia, CA · $58.8–122.5K | |
Eurofins | Boston · $35–41/hr | |
Labcorp | Indianapolis · pay not shown |
■ Bench Notes
Before an AI gating tool touches a patient report, validate it like an assay
ARUP's foundation-model project and the four labs in the ICCS AI plenary all point the same way. If your lab is piloting machine-learning gating or MRD triage, treat the model as a change to a validated method:
Fix the reference method first. Compare against expert manual analysis on the same listmode files, signed out blind to the model's call. CLSI H62 (Validation of Assays Performed by Flow Cytometry, 2021) sets out method-comparison design and acceptance criteria.
Freeze the inputs. A model trained on one panel, instrument and setting set has only been validated for that combination. Lock settings to bead targets the way EuroFlow does (Kalina et al., Leukemia 2012, 10.1038/leu.2012.122), and revalidate after any panel or instrument change.
Report discordance, not only accuracy. For every case where the model and the human disagree, record which was right on adjudication, and look for patterns: low cellularity, unusual phenotypes, post-therapy samples.
Write down who signs. Decide in the SOP whether the model triages, pre-gates or calls, and what a pathologist must review in each case.
Keep the files that trained and tested it. Store the FCS files and the version of the model with each validation run, with MIFlowCyt metadata (Lee et al., Cytometry A 2008, 10.1002/cyto.a.20623). Inspectors will ask for both.
What did we miss? Hit reply — corrections run at the top of the next edition. If a colleague is weighing a CRO or a new cytometer, forward this to them.
— Josh