Keen to stay out front in cell ther­a­py, Gilead­'s Kite builds its own vi­ral vec­tor man­u­fac­tur­ing op­er­a­tions

Days af­ter woo­ing Christi Shaw to the helm at Kite, Gilead is once again tout­ing just how se­ri­ous it is about grow­ing its pi­o­neer­ing CAR-T and fol­low-up cell ther­a­py busi­ness. The sub­sidiary is build­ing a new fa­cil­i­ty ded­i­cat­ed to vi­ral vec­tor man­u­fac­tur­ing with­in a bi­o­log­ics site at Ocean­side, Cal­i­for­nia.

Right now, Kite gets it vi­ral vec­tors — crit­i­cal start­ing ma­te­r­i­al for edit­ing the T cells to ac­ti­vate can­cer-killing ca­pa­bil­i­ties — from con­tract man­u­fac­tur­ers, said Tim Moore, EVP of tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions. But amid a cell ther­a­py boom, the lim­its that place on com­mer­cial sup­ply and de­vel­op­ment is be­com­ing more ap­par­ent.

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