Thrive Bioscience has been recognized by CIOReview Magazine as the recipient of “Top 20 Biotech Companies - 2019,” based on our proprietary methodology, reflecting its position in the industry. This profile has been developed by the CIOReview research and editorial team based on insights from an interview with Thomas Forest Farb, Co-Founder, President & Board Director.

Thrive Bioscience
Analytics and Automation for Better Cell Biology

Thomas Forest Farb, Co-Founder, President & Board Director

Numerous studies have shown that an astounding percentage of pre-clinical research is not reproducible across labs. While this replication crisis has long-standing roots, a key reason behind the issue, as some studies have shown, is the manual methods employed for cell culture. To add to the problem, documentation is almost non-existent, or at least not accessible, regarding cells’ condition or the cell culture processes used. So if an experiment fails, or even if an experiment succeeds, researchers have minimal documentation to determine the precise reasons for the experiment’s success or failure. One of the first companies to address these roadblocks to better research is Thrive Bioscience. The company’s family of products ensures reproducible protocols for cell culture, along with a slew of images and metrics to document and analyze cell culture processes thoroughly.

“We are a pioneer in the area of automated, programmable cell culture and maintenance systems that combine extensive image capture and analytics, encapsulated within a closed incubation environment,” claims Thomas Forest Farb-Horch, president, co-founder, and board director of Thrive Bioscience. The company’s products increase the efficiency and effectiveness of cell culture processes, but more importantly, provide better data, clearer insights, and greater quality control that was previously unavailable.

Thrive’s products include CellAssist, a bench-top instrument that collects and catalogs data and images, helping a researcher get precise reports, analyses, and workflow advice. Another product, to be delivered in 2021, is the AutoImager which delivers continuous, automatic movement of 30 to 100 cell culture plates between CellAssist and an incubator in a closed environment for 24/7 imaging.

In addition to these products, Thrive BioScience is currently testing its Alpaca Cell Culture System, an instrument that automates cell culture processes and reduces human errors through the use of robotics and fluidics and is combined with CellAssist’s capabilities, all in a controlled environment. These offerings are set for commercial launch between 2020 and 2022.

However, the tenacity of Thrive Bioscience’s offerings is not limited to digitalizing cell culture processes alone. “To ensure a better documentation methodology inside a lab, Thrive’s products provide self-populating lab notebooks that automatically document the processes and inputs (such as the reagents and cell lines),” states Farb. This solution breathes a sigh of relief for lab managers who often complain about being unaware of the details of every activity taking place inside their labs and despite using advanced analytical instruments. Alongside, to eliminate variability in the lab process from researcher to researcher, Thrive’s products provide access to their historical information to researchers for verifying accuracy of their cell culture techniques, in case their experiment fails to achieve expected outcomes.

With a product portfolio that vast, Thrive aims to solve some significant roadblocks in the present drug discovery, biomedical research, and cell therapeutics landscape and usher a new standard in cell culture processes. “We aim to serve a wide range of clients, from research labs to pre-clinical production with our family of products that utilize a common set of proprietary image processing software, analytics, optics, and sensors,” reassures Farb. Thrive’s products are designed to help drug discovery and biomedical research companies save immense public and corporate spending while also decreasing the time to market new medicines. This is because Thrive’s automated products can help a researcher complete tasks that initially took hours to complete. “Our objective is, and shall always remain in taking the art out of cell culture and delivering high-quality science, because good science needs good cells,” concludes Farb.

Thrive Bioscience

Thrive Bioscience Debuts New Cell Imaging Capabilities and CellAssist Software Release 4.0 to Advance Laboratory Automation

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

SAN DIEGO - Thrive Bioscience Inc., an innovative provider of automated live cell imaging instruments and software, debuts a new integrated suite of unique and exciting capabilities, including Release 4.0 of its CellAssist software, that significantly advances the field of live cell imaging.

Thrive's CellAssist family of networkable instruments now provides unprecedented new capabilities for researchers to automatically capture thousands of time-series images with 100+ focal planes on 1 to 50 cell culture plates within a controlled environment. Imaging modes include phase contrast and bright-field at 4x, 10x, and 20x in 6-well to 384-well round bottom and flat bottom plates.

The CellAssist family includes a benchtop model, a robotic 50-plate model, and advanced software that produces comprehensive databases of high-quality images, metrics, and documentation that provide researchers groundbreaking insights into cell and tissue dynamics.

New CellAssist family product hardware and software capabilities include:

• Imaging a 4mm z-range with 100+ focal planes, each 2 µm to 50 µm apart (user-selectable)

• 40% faster image capture rates (gigabytes of images in minutes)

• Image correction for physical variations in cell culture plates

• Imaging in round bottom 6-well to 384-well plates

• Spheroid area and volume calculation toolkit

"The CellAssist family of products, including and software Release 4.0, offer unique imaging capabilities that will vastly improve organoid imaging, IVF imaging, viral plaque assays, gene editing (CRISPR), and stem cell production for researchers," explained Thomas Farb-Horch, CEO of Thrive.

Thrive unveiled these new capabilities at the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening's annual meeting in San Diego, February 26 – 28, 2023, and the family of products is set to be launched following the conference.

Thrive Bioscience Welcomes Todd Lewis as Chief Commercial Officer

Monday, May 20, 2024

BEVERLY, Mass.,-- Thrive Bioscience, Inc., a provider of innovative automated live cell imaging instruments and software, is pleased to announce that Todd Lewis has joined the executive management team as its Chief Commercial Officer. Todd brings over two decades of relevant experience in sales and commercial leadership within the life sciences industry, making him an excellent addition to the management team focused on driving Thrive’s growth in the market.

Prior to joining Thrive, Lewis was instrumental in expanding sales globally and building commercial operations at several top-tier life science companies. Lewis was most recently VP of Sales at Unchained Labs where he led a global sales organization and channel partners primarily focused on biologics and gene therapy market segments. Before joining Unchained Labs, Lewis held sales leadership roles in the U.S. and Europe for MilliporeSigma selling protein and cell analysis platforms. His expertise in commercialization, paired with a deep understanding of the biotech industry’s dynamics, will be invaluable to Thrive as it continues to innovate and provide leading-edge solutions to researchers worldwide.

“I am incredibly excited to join Thrive, leading the commercial team to further our mission of delivering advanced imaging platforms to researchers,” said Todd Lewis. “Thrive’s imaging tools enable significantly improved cell culture processes and cell-based experiments for drug discovery, regenerative medicine, stem cell research and infectious disease research, and deliver impactful insights.”

Thomas Farb-Horch, CEO of Thrive Bioscience, expressed his enthusiasm about the new appointment, “Todd’s extensive experience with both large and small organizations in life sciences, and his successful build-out of international commercial teams is what Thrive needs in order to scale our business and further our mission of empowering biologists. I am thrilled for Todd to join our executive leadership team and help us bring Thrive to the next level on our growth trajectory.”

Company
Thrive Bioscience

Management
Thomas Forest Farb, Co-Founder, President & Board Director

Description
Thrive Bioscience is the first company to meet the need for automated, programmable cell culture & maintenance systems combined with extensive image capture & analytics, all within a closed incubation environment. Thrive’s innovative systems provide reproducible protocols, scalable cell propagation, analytics, and complete process history documentation with supporting images. Their system also provides an interactive partnership between cell technicians and grows, maintain, and manipulate cells. Through automation, careful monitoring and analysis, Thrive systems remove causes of variation inherent in manual cell culture. They are taking the art out of cell culture and delivering high-quality science

Thrive Bioscience Analytics and Automation for Better Cell Biology