Bracco's BubbleGen Aims to Reshape Cell Therapy Manufacturing

DUBLIN, IRELAND – May 05, 2026 – Bracco Imaging, a global heavyweight in diagnostic imaging, has made a decisive entry into the burgeoning field of cell therapy manufacturing. At the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (ISCT) conference this week, the company unveiled BubbleGen™, a novel cell selection technology, and launched an Early Access Program for researchers to evaluate its potential. The move signals a significant strategic pivot for Bracco, leveraging its decades of expertise in microbubbles to address one of the most critical bottlenecks in the production of next-generation medicines like CAR T-cell therapies.

BubbleGen™ employs buoyant microbubbles to isolate specific cells from a sample, offering a stark alternative to the industry's dominant magnetic bead-based methods. By inviting academic and industry developers to test the system, Bracco is betting that its floating-bubble approach can provide a gentler, cleaner, and more flexible solution for a market desperate for innovation.

A New Approach to Cell Selection

For years, the standard for isolating target cells in therapy production has been immunomagnetic separation, a process that uses tiny magnetic particles (beads) coated with antibodies to bind to cells, which are then pulled out of a sample using powerful magnets. While effective, this method is not without its drawbacks, including the potential for residual bead contamination, unwanted cell activation, and physical stress on the delicate cells.

Bracco's BubbleGen™ technology flips this concept on its head—instead of pulling cells down, it lifts them up. The system uses lipid-based microbubbles that are functionalized with specific antibodies. These microbubbles bind to the target cells and, due to their natural buoyancy, gently float them to the surface for collection. The process is designed to be a “zero-footprint” technology; after collection, the microbubbles can be dissipated, leaving a pure population of cells on what some in the field call a “clean biological canvas,” free from the magnetic residuals that can complicate downstream processes.

This gentle, bead-free separation is intended to minimize cellular stress and maintain what researchers refer to as “unperturbed intracellular signaling pathways,” which is critical for ensuring the viability and therapeutic efficacy of the final cell product. The initial test case for BubbleGen™ focuses on CD3+ T cell selection and activation—a foundational step in creating CAR T-cell therapies—and even integrates both steps into a single, streamlined process.

“BubbleGen rethinks cell selection, enabling more flexible, targeted applications across cell types,” said Sophie He, Vice President of Cell Therapy at Bracco, in the company’s announcement. The platform's flexibility is a key selling point, as it is designed to be adapted for isolating harder-to-target cell populations or for negative selection to remove unwanted components like dead cells, improving overall sample purity.

Addressing a Critical Manufacturing Bottleneck

The timing of Bracco’s market entry is no accident. The cell and gene therapy sector is expanding at an explosive rate, but its growth is constrained by significant manufacturing challenges. The global cell therapy technologies market, valued at over $15 billion in 2021, is projected to approach $60 billion by 2031. This growth is fueled by the promise of personalized cures for cancers and other diseases, but the logistics of producing these complex therapies for each patient remain a major hurdle.

Current manufacturing workflows are often lengthy, labor-intensive, and prohibitively expensive, creating bottlenecks that limit patient access. The cell separation stage is a critical part of this workflow, and industry experts agree that improvements in efficiency, scalability, and cost are desperately needed. The demand for new separation technologies is so high that this segment alone is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of over 19%.

Innovations like BubbleGen™ are poised to address this need directly. By simplifying and streamlining the cell selection process, the technology has the potential to reduce manufacturing time and complexity. Furthermore, its compatibility with automated, closed-system bioreactors—the direction the industry is rapidly moving towards—could help enhance product consistency and reduce the risk of contamination, accelerating the journey from lab to commercial-scale production.

A Strategic Leap into a New Arena

For Bracco Imaging, the launch of BubbleGen™ represents a calculated diversification from its core business. For nearly a century, the company has been a leader in diagnostic imaging, renowned for its contrast agents used in X-rays, MRIs, and particularly its microbubbles for contrast-enhanced ultrasound. This move marks the company’s first major expansion into the therapeutic manufacturing space, applying its deep knowledge of microbubble physics and chemistry to an entirely new, high-growth market.

Bracco enters a competitive landscape dominated by established players like Miltenyi Biotec and Thermo Fisher Scientific, whose magnetic-based systems are deeply integrated into many existing manufacturing protocols. However, Bracco is positioning BubbleGen™ not as a direct replacement but as a differentiated alternative that solves the known limitations of magnetic methods. Its differentiation strategy hinges on the benefits of its non-magnetic, traceless, and gentle separation mechanism.

The company is backing this strategic pivot with significant investment. It has established a dedicated cell therapy team, forged collaborations with partners like CellBri and Limula to develop automated systems, and announced plans for a GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) manufacturing facility for cell therapy products, expected to be ready in mid-2027. This demonstrates a long-term commitment to becoming a key supplier for the therapeutic industry.

From Early Access to Clinical Reality

The BubbleGen™ Early Access Program is the first step in this journey. By providing evaluation kits to R&D and process development teams, Bracco aims to generate crucial real-world data on the technology’s performance across a wide range of applications. The program is designed as a collaborative partnership, offering participants direct access to Bracco's scientific support.

“Beyond providing the technology, our focus is on supporting teams as they generate meaningful data within their own workflows,” noted Thierry Bettinger, Director of the Bracco Research Center in Geneva. “We will work closely with participants to guide experimental design, troubleshoot, and help them fully evaluate how microbubble-based cell selection can be applied to their specific processes.”

The feedback gathered will be instrumental in refining the technology and building the evidence needed for regulatory submissions to health authorities like the U.S. FDA and the European Medicines Agency. While the platform is currently available for research use only, Bracco has set an ambitious timeline. The company anticipates that BubbleGen™ will be available for clinical use in 2027, aligning with its plans for GMP-compliant material manufacturing. This roadmap suggests that within a few years, these tiny bubbles could be playing a very large role in the future of personalized medicine.