Gilead for­ti­fies its pi­o­neer­ing cell ther­a­py sta­tus, ex­pand­ing in­to three new fa­cil­i­ties and team­ing with NCI

Af­ter the com­pa­ny’s $12 bil­lion buy­out of Kite last year, Gilead is wast­ing no time ce­ment­ing its sta­tus as a leader in cell ther­a­py. The com­pa­ny an­nounced plans Tues­day to beef up its op­er­a­tions with three new fa­cil­i­ties around the globe — and inked a re­search agree­ment that could con­nect the com­pa­ny with more cut­ting-edge work in the field.

Be­com­ing an overnight leader in adop­tive cell ther­a­py af­ter its pur­chase of Kite, Gilead is now pri­or­i­tiz­ing the R&D and man­u­fac­ture of these drugs. In the Nether­lands, Gilead has leased a 117,000 square-foot man­u­fac­tur­ing site in Hoofd­dorp, al­low­ing the com­pa­ny to make and de­liv­er cell ther­a­pies to peo­ple liv­ing with can­cer in Eu­rope. Among oth­er drugs, the fa­cil­i­ty will man­u­fac­ture the CAR-T axi­cab­ta­gene ciloleu­cel (which goes un­der the brand name Yescar­ta here in the US). The ther­a­py is cur­rent­ly un­der re­view by the Eu­ro­pean Med­i­cines Agency.

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