In a move to boost its nat­ur­al killer can­di­dates, Sen­ti Bio will build out its own San Fran­cis­co man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty

Sil­i­con Val­ley syn­thet­ic bi­ol­o­gy play­er and Roche col­lab­o­ra­tor Sen­ti Bio has been hush-hush about much of its sci­ence since it was found­ed in 2016, but the com­pa­ny made noise Tues­day when it an­nounced it signed a lease agree­ment to build out a com­mer­cial-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty in Alame­da, CA.

The 92,000 square-foot fa­cil­i­ty will be built with the goal of pro­vid­ing clin­i­cal- and com­mer­cial-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing for off-the-shelf CAR nat­ur­al killer cell can­di­dates. The site will sup­port clin­i­cal tri­als for SEN­TI-202 for acute myeloid leukemia and SEN­TI-301 for he­pa­to­cel­lu­lar car­ci­no­ma. In-house man­u­fac­tur­ing will help Sen­ti main­tain con­trol over sup­ply and qual­i­ty, and is be­ing de­signed to pro­vide end-to-end man­u­fac­tur­ing, as well as stor­age for the fi­nal prod­uct, the com­pa­ny said.

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