Kite to culture cells for CAR-T therapies in system that replicates natural growth environment

By Gareth Macdonald

- Last updated on GMT

Kite licenses bioreactor that replicates conditions in thymus (iStock/Nerthuz)
Kite licenses bioreactor that replicates conditions in thymus (iStock/Nerthuz)

Related tags T cell

CAR-T therapy developer Kite Pharma has licensed rights to a culturing system that replicates conditions in the thymus from researchers at the University of California.

The deal – financial terms of which were not disclosed – will see Santa Monica-based Kite use the tech – known as the artificial thymic organoid (ATO) cell culture system - to manufacture the T lymphocytes for cell therapy products.

The idea is that culturing the cells in conditions matching those in the thymus – the organ where T cells mature – will make the process more efficient, scalable and reproducible.

The license is an exclusive worldwide agreement.

The technology will drive Kite’s long term allogenic T cell development strategy according to chief medical officer (CMO), David Chang.

Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cells are based on T-cells taken from patients and engineered to target and destroy cancer cells.

Kite claims it can harvest the immune cells from patients, modify them and reintroduce them in 14 days.

"This platform provides a renewable source of T-cells and can be further exploited with gene engineering… to generate potent T-cell products that have the potential to be resistant to rejection and to bear no risk of graft-versus-host disease​."

The license with UCL comes less than a month after Kite opened a T-cell manufacturing facility in El Segundo, California.

The facility will produce the firm’s lead candidate KTE-C19, a treatment for chemo-refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) which is in Phase II studies​.

It will also produce supplies of Kite's other pipeline cell therapies for clinical trials.

Related news

Show more

Related products

show more

Trends in Biopharmaceutical Raw Material Selection

Trends in Biopharmaceutical Raw Material Selection

Actylis – The Partner of Choice | 31-Jan-2023 | Business Advice

Join us as our in-house experts, along with Cecile Bellamy from Pfizer, discuss current and future trends in biopharmaceutical raw material selection.

Liposomal and Nanoparticle Technology

Liposomal and Nanoparticle Technology

Pfizer CentreOne | 18-Nov-2022 | Technical / White Paper

Medical science is continuously searching for better ways to administer drugs into the body and to maximize the therapeutic effectiveness of the drugs...

Connectivity & Integration in Biomanufacturing

Connectivity & Integration in Biomanufacturing

Wheeler Bio | 17-Nov-2022 | Technical / White Paper

As the Pharma 4.0 initiative sets a new industry paradigm, more biomanufacturing companies are asking how they can design and build facilities that apply...

Scalability, Quality, and Speed with Transposons

Scalability, Quality, and Speed with Transposons

Wheeler Bio | 20-Oct-2022 | Technical / White Paper

To solve for the significant bottlenecks often presented by conventional cell line development processes, this article discusses how Wheeler Bio is leveraging...

Related suppliers

Follow us

Products

View more

Webinars