LUMICKS launches Avidion to improve cell therapy development

Avidion brings clarity to immune drug-tumor interactions, helping scientists identify better cell therapy candidates, understand mechanisms, and advance with confidence.

AMSTERDAM, Sept. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- LUMICKS announces the European launch of Avidion, the next generation Cell Avidity platform, at the upcoming CICON 2025 conference on September 10-12 in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

83% of CAR-T cell therapies fail after preclinical development ^[1], highlighting that current in vitro assays and animal models too often fail to predict clinical efficacy. Molecular assays measure how receptors bind antigens, while killing assays measure the functional outcomes. There is a gap in-between that captures how cells physically engage and interact. This leaves a critical blind spot in understanding the mechanism of action and selecting the best candidates. Cell Avidity, the combined strength of cell–cell binding, helps fill this critical gap between in vitro measures and in vivo outcomes. Its value has been demonstrated in over 50 high impact publications from more than 70 leading academic institutes and biotech/pharma companies.

Avidion is the next-generation instrument that makes measuring Cell Avidity simple and accessible. It empowers our customers and other drug developers to apply Cell Avidity across their entire workflow, from screening large panels to in-depth characterization studies. By enabling faster and more informed lead selection, Avidion helps improve preclinical success rates and reduce the overall cost of developing new cell therapies.

Avidion's high-throughput platform is compatible with standard 96-well plates, making it easy to integrate into existing workflows. Its fully automated system, enhanced by machine learning, delivers reproducible, high-quality data for simple and reliable data collection.

What Customers Say

"There's something very elegant about the solution. Avidion makes it exceptionally straightforward. You make the layer. You see the cells. There's a building of confidence." – Peter Chockley, Assistant professor, The Ohio State University

"[The] high throughput [and] larger datasets to understand the correlation between binder characteristics and CAR-signaling quantity and quality is definitely the way to go." – Marcus Barden, Postdoc researcher from Hinrich Abken lab, Regensburg University

About LUMICKS

LUMICKS is a pioneering life science tools company dedicated to accelerating drug discovery in cancer research and advancing the understanding of fundamental biological mechanisms at the molecular and cellular levels. Our innovative technologies empower researchers to reveal crucial insights into the biological complexity of health and disease, driving the development of next-generation therapies and accelerating immunotherapy breakthroughs. 

Visit www.lumicks.com to find out more about LUMICKS and the different solutions they provide.

^[1] Source: Clinical Development Success Rates and Contributing Factors 2011-2020