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BioCentriq Partners with Orchestra Life Sciences to Advance Princeton, NJ Cell Therapy Facility Development

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Strategic Partnership to Support Facility Design and Digital Infrastructure ImplementationAccelerates Development of State-of-the-Art Advanced Therapy Manufacturing TechnologiesEnhances Operational Excellence for Clinical-to-Commercial Manufacturing Capabilities

PRINCETON, N.J., Jan. 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — BioCentriq, a leading cell therapy contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), today announced a strategic partnership with Orchestra Life Sciences (OLS), a premier technical consultancy firm specializing in advanced therapy manufacturing solutions. This collaboration supports BioCentriq’s recently announced expansion in Princeton, New Jersey, and focuses on BioCentriq’s $12M CAPEX investment for facility optimization and digital integration to enhance the site’s cell therapy development, GMP manufacturing, and testing capabilities, while delivering a customer-ready facility that upholds the highest standards of operational excellence and quality.

Orchestra Life Sciences will provide comprehensive technical expertise and strategic support for BioCentriq’s new 60,000 sq. ft. Princeton facility, announced in December 2024. The partnership encompasses multiple strategic initiatives, including the implementation of advanced manufacturing technologies, development of a fully integrated digital ecosystem, and optimization of facility design to meet the stringent regulatory requirements of cell therapy production under US FDA and EU GMP Annex 1. This collaboration strengthens BioCentriq’s position as a leading provider of cell therapy manufacturing solutions while ensuring operational excellence across all aspects of their service.

The partnership leverages Orchestra Life Sciences’ proven track record in advanced therapy facility design and infrastructure optimization. Their expertise spans various critical areas, including:

Implementation of state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies and automation solutionsDevelopment of integrated quality management systemsOptimization of process workflows and operational efficiencyEnhancement of digital infrastructure and data management capabilitiesStrategic guidance on regulatory compliance and quality assurance

“This partnership with Orchestra Life Sciences represents another significant step in our commitment to delivering best-in-class cell therapy manufacturing solutions,” said Syed T. Husain, Chairman and CEO of BioCentriq. “Their expertise in facility design, engineering solutions, and operational excellence aligns perfectly with our vision for creating a cutting-edge manufacturing center that will serve the evolving clinical- and commercial-stage needs of our clients. This collaboration will enable us to accelerate our capability and bring additional infrastructure and capacity to industry in support of innovative cell therapies.”

The collaboration will enhance BioCentriq’s ability to provide comprehensive development and manufacturing services for cell therapy innovators. Orchestra Life Sciences brings extensive experience in advanced therapy manufacturing facility design and optimization, having supported over 30 life science companies in implementing innovative solutions for complex manufacturing challenges.

“At Orchestra, we understand that the success of advanced therapies depends on creating infrastructure and systems that enable scalability without compromising quality. Partnering with BioCentriq is an exciting opportunity to apply our expertise in facility design and digital integration to advance a shared vision for operational excellence in cell therapy manufacturing,” said Emilie Pelletier, Co-Founder & CEO of Orchestra Life Sciences. “This collaboration is a major milestone, ensuring that innovative therapies can move seamlessly from clinical development to commercial delivery, ultimately improving access to life-saving treatments for patients.”

The strategic partnership will support BioCentriq’s planned facility completion and operational readiness by Q2 2025. The enhanced facility will feature state-of-the-art capabilities for cell therapy development, manufacturing, and testing, supported by advanced digital systems and optimized operational workflows. This collaboration reflects a shared vision to advance cell therapy manufacturing, addressing growing market demands and driving innovation that supports the future of advanced therapies.

For more information, visit www.biocentriq.com.

About BioCentriq
BioCentriq is a leading cell therapy contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) dedicated to advancing the field of cell therapy. Since 2019, the company has specialized in developing, manufacturing, and releasing autologous and allogeneic cell therapy products for early- to mid-stage clinical trials, and has evolved into an end-to-end clinical-to-commercial service provider. Operating from two U.S.-based manufacturing facilities, BioCentriq combines the flexibility and entrepreneurial spirit of a specialist CDMO with the global expertise and resources of GC Corporation of South Korea, a global leader in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors.

About Orchestra Life Sciences
Orchestra Life Sciences (OLS) is a technical consultancy providing strategic support and scientific expertise to advance pharmaceutical therapies for cancer and rare diseases. The company specializes in engineering solutions, operational excellence, and quality compliance services for advanced therapy manufacturing facilities. Their comprehensive approach encompasses facility design, process optimization, and implementation of cutting-edge manufacturing technologies. With a focus on innovation and efficiency, OLS helps clients navigate complex technical challenges while maintaining the highest standards of quality and regulatory compliance.

For more information, please contact:
Joseph Sinclair
VP and Head of Commercial
joseph.sinclair@biocentriq.com

Emilie Pelletier
CEO & Co-Founder
Orchestra Life Sciences
info@orchestralifesciences.com

 

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SOURCE BioCentriq, Inc.

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Halfpricesoft.com Unveils ezW2: No Red Forms For W-2 and W-3 Filing for the 2025 Tax Season

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REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 23, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Halfpricesoft.com offers clients less expensive solution by printing Copy A W-2 and W-3 on plain white paper. No W-2 or W-3 red forms are needed. With the SSA approved ezW2 software, employers and tax professionals can now print an unlimited number of W-2 or W-3 forms in house, easily and inexpensively. Please note: Pre-printed Copy A red forms for 1099-NEC and 1096 Copy A are still required by SSA.

 

“ezW2 2024 tax preparation software gives employers a fast and reliable way to process W-2 and W-3 forms for the January 31, 2025 deadline by eliminating the need for Copy A W-2 and W-3 Forms,” said Halfpricesoft.com Founder, Dr. Ge.

Prices start at only $49 for the single installation small to mid-size business version ($99 for the new enterprise version which will allow for efile and pdf processing) EzW2 2024 software automates the process of completing, printing and filing all the W-2, W-3, 1099-NEC and 1096 forms.

Potential clients can download and test for up to 30 days at http://www.halfpricesoft.com/w2-software-free-download.asp. The trial version prints forms with “TRIAL” watermark and limits e-filing. Once customers download software and enter a purchased license key the software unlocks for unlimited use.

ezW2 is compatible with Windows 11, 10, 8, 7 and other Windows systems. It has been designed as a quality and user-friendly software for US small to mid-size businesses.

The 2025 edition of ezW2 offers businesses everything needed to prepare, print, and e-file W-2, W-3, 1099-NEC, and 1096 forms, helping in complicity with government regulations effortlessly. Key features include:

Print Forms on Plain Paper: Approved by the SSA and IRS, ezW2 eliminates the need for expensive pre-printed forms by allowing users to print W-2 and W-3 forms in black-and-white on plain paper.E-filing Made Easy: With built-in e-filing capabilities, users can electronically submit forms directly to the IRS and SSA, saving time and reducing errors.Support for Multiple Businesses: Ideal for accountants and CPAs, ezW2 supports multiple businesses and unlimited form filings.Flexible Printing Options: Print employee W-2 forms for distribution or mail forms directly to employees.

Potential customers can download this software and test it for compatibility for up to 30 days with no obligation to purchase at https://www.halfpricesoft.com/w2_software.asp. The trial version will print forms with a TRIAL watermark until the license key is purchased and added. 

About halfpricesoft.com

Halfpricesoft.com is a leading provider of small to mid-size business software, including online and desktop payroll software, online employee attendance tracking software, accounting software, in-house business and personal check printing software, W2, software, 1099 software, 1095 ACA form software and ezACH direct deposit software. Software from halfpricesoft.com is trusted by thousands of customers for over 20 years and will allow small and mid-size business owners to simplify payroll processing and streamline business management.

 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/halfpricesoftcom-unveils-ezw2-no-red-forms-for-w-2-and-w-3-filing-for-the-2025-tax-season-302354219.html

SOURCE Halfpricesoft.com

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CAIS and Scale AI Unveil Results of “Humanity’s Last Exam,” a Groundbreaking New Benchmark

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SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 23, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — The Center for AI Safety (CAIS) and Scale AI today announced the results of a groundbreaking new AI benchmark that was designed to test the limits of AI knowledge and whether the models are capable of chain-of-thought reasoning. The results demonstrated a significant improvement from the reasoning capabilities of earlier models, but current models still were only able to answer fewer than 10 percent of the expert questions correctly.

CAIS and Scale AI Unveil Results of “Humanity’s Last Exam,” a Groundbreaking New Benchmark

The new benchmark, called “Humanity’s Last Exam,” evaluated whether AI systems have achieved world-class expert-level reasoning and knowledge capabilities across a wide range of fields, including math, humanities, and the natural sciences. Throughout the fall, CAIS and Scale AI crowdsourced questions from experts to assemble the hardest and broadest problems to stump the AI models. The exam was developed to address the challenge of “benchmark saturation”: models that regularly achieve near-perfect scores on existing tests, but may not be able to answer questions outside of those tests. Saturation reduces the utility of a benchmark as a precise measurement of future model progress.

“We wanted problems that would test the capabilities of the models at the frontier of human knowledge and reasoning,”  said Dan Hendrycks, CAIS co-founder and executive director. “We can’t predict how quickly the models will advance. When I released the MATH benchmark—a challenging competition mathematics dataset—in 2021, the best model scored less than 10%; few predicted that scores higher than 90% would be achieved just three years later. Right now, Humanity’s Last Exam shows that there are still some expert closed-ended questions that models are not able to answer.  We will see how long that lasts.”

Testing Methodology

Altogether, CAIS and Scale researchers collected more than 70,000 trial questions. That led to a selection of 13,000 questions for human expert review which, in turn, were finalized to a set of 3,000 questions on the final exam’s public release. The questions were aimed at world-class expert levels and were put to several multi-modal, frontier LLMs including OpenAI GPT-4o, Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Google Gemini 1.5 Pro, and OpenAI o1.

“We know the AI revolution is being shaped by human ingenuity, and we’re proud to be at the forefront. To help humans measure AI progress, we engineered what might be the ultimate test, meticulously distilled and designed to challenge the world’s most advanced models at the frontiers of intelligence—requiring precise, multi-step logical reasoning and unambiguous answers at a level that pushes even the most sophisticated AI systems to their limits.” Summer Yue, Director of Research at Scale AI said.

Humanity’s Last Exam was a global collaborative effort involving nearly 1,000 contributors from more than 500 institutions across 50 countries, with most contributors being active researchers or professors. The questions spanned multiple formats, including text-only and multi-modal challenges that integrated images and diagrams.

The questions were designed to deeply test the capability of the models across diverse domains. For example, a question submitted in Ecology asked:
“Hummingbirds within Apodiformes uniquely have a bilaterally paired oval bone, a sesamoid embedded in the caudolateral portion of the expanded, cruciate aponeurosis of insertion of m. depressor caudae. How many paired tendons are supported by this sesamoid bone? Answer with a number.”

Additional sample questions can be found here (lastexam.ai).

In the final round of testing, Yue said they saw some of the models begin to answer a fraction of the questions correctly (less than 10%); however, she said variations frequently happen in model testing and could be the result of randomness. CAIS and Scale AI said they will open up the dataset to the research community, to dig deeper into the variations and to evaluate new AI systems while continuing to explore the limitations of existing models. A small subset of questions will be held back to preserve integrity for future evaluations.

Top Questions

CAIS and Scale AI offered financial awards for the best contributions to Humanity’s Last Exam, with $5,000 USD awarded for each of the top 50 questions and $500 USD for the next 500 best submissions, along with the opportunity for coauthorship of the final paper.

“By identifying the gaps in AI’s reasoning capabilities, Humanity’s Last Exam not only benchmarks current systems but also provides a roadmap for future research and development,” said Yue.

About The Center for AI Safety
The Center for AI Safety (CAIS) is a research organization whose mission is to reduce societal-scale and national security risks from AI. CAIS research focuses on mitigating high-consequence risks in areas like monitoring, alignment, and systemic safety. CAIS works to expand the field of AI safety and security by providing compute resources and technical infrastructure to top researchers and engaging with the global research community. Through its CAIS Action Fund, CAIS advocates for safe and secure AI. CAIS was founded in 2022 and is headquartered in San Francisco.

About Scale AI
Scale AI is the Humanity-first AI Company. Backed by our Data Foundry, we generate high quality data and provide technology solutions that allow our enterprise and public sector customers to build, deploy, and evaluate the smartest AI tools and applications. By making data abundant, rigorous, and high-quality, we are accelerating the progress of AI. Scale AI was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in San Francisco.

Contact:
Richard Crook, richardc@safe.ai
Fiorella Riccobono, fiorella.riccobono@scale.com

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SOURCE Center for AI Safety

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P2P.org Joins Northstake’s ETH Validator Marketplace As Staking Provider

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The partnership will strengthen institutional confidence in Northstake’s solution with secure, scalable, and compliant infrastructure

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Jan. 23, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Northstake A/S has announced that P2P.org, a leading global staking platform, will join its ETH Validator Marketplace as a staking infrastructure provider. This collaboration will see P2P.org provide enterprise-grade node infrastructure, enhancing institutional confidence in Northstake’s staking solution and advancing the broader $2.8 trillion staking market.

Clients using Northstake’s solution will be able to leverage P2P.org’s institutional-grade infrastructure and expertise in operating validators on Ethereum. P2P.org is one of the largest validators on Ethereum surpassing 1 million staked ETH and $7.1 billion in total value locked (TVL) in 2024. 

Jesper Johansen, CEO and Founder of Northstake said: “The institutional staking landscape demands both innovation and scale. By partnering with P2P.org, we can offer one of the largest ETH validators in the Ethereum ecosystem to our clients. This collaboration represents a significant step forward in our mission to unlock institutional staking and total return ETH products.”

As one of the world’s largest institutional-grade staking providers, P2P.org powers the blockchain economy by providing enterprise-grade node infrastructure and staking operations across more than 40 protocols for 130+ institutional clients. Through this partnership, P2P.org’s infrastructure will strengthen Northstake’s mission to deliver compliant staking solutions tailored to the needs of institutional clients.

Alex Esin, CEO at P2P.org added: “Northstake’s ETH Validator Marketplace represents a significant advancement in institutional staking solutions, particularly for regulated financial institutions requiring both liquidity and regulatory compliance. Our partnership will combine P2P.org’s enterprise-grade node infrastructure with Northstake’s innovative marketplace, setting new standards for institutional staking services.”

In recent months, Northstake has demonstrated a new staking model allowing asset managers to trade their ETH validators on an industry-leading marketplace, including GSR, Nonco, DV Chain, and Keyrock. Similarly, Northstake’s ETH Validator Marketplace enabled 3iQ, the leading Canadian investment fund manager of The Ether Fund and the 3iQ Ether Staking ETF, to stake a higher percentage of its assets.

Jesper Johansen, CEO and Founder of Northstake, is available for interviews.

About Northstake A/S 

Northstake A/S is a regulated, EU-based virtual asset service provider offering compliant staking products to institutions. Northstake has demonstrated a new staking model allowing institutional investors to trade Eth validators on a marketplace with industry-leading market markers. Northstake aims to build a tokenized ETH validator marketplace for institutions. Northstake A/S (VASP, FTID: 17520) is regulated under the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (DFSA). To learn more visit www.northstake.dk

About P2P.org

P2P.org is a leading platform for secure and non-custodial staking for crypto businesses and intermediaries. With over 90,000 delegators and $8+ billion in total locked value, P2P.org democratizes staking access while championing “Staking-as-a-Business.” By making staking effortless and profitable, P2P.org fosters broader participation in securing blockchain networks, which is vital for the sustainability of the crypto ecosystem.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/p2porg-joins-northstakes-eth-validator-marketplace-as-staking-provider-302357629.html

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