Dive Brief:
- Contract manufacturer Masthercell has added a new production wing to its existing site in Belgium, building five new late-stage and commercial-ready clean rooms, the company said last week.
- In addition to the clean rooms, Masthercell has included two development laboratories, a quality control lab and extra warehousing in the wing.
- Plans are underway for a commercial manufacturing facility, said the CDMO, which focuses on the cell therapy space.
Dive Insight:
The field of cell therapy is fast growing, and many companies have invested in building out clinical pipelines as technologies evolve.
Not all companies, however, have the manufacturing expertise in-house sufficient to support their needs — creating an opportunity for CDMOs to build a business around meeting clinical and commercial needs.
Masthercell designed its new wing to adapt between clinical and commercial production, with each 30 square meter clean room capable of operating independently.
The CDMO focuses on offering development and cGMP manufacturing services in cell therapy, from technology transfer to product delivery. It operates under the umbrella of Masthercell Global, which combines Masthercell in Belgium with Atvio Biotech in Israel and Curecell in Korea. Masthercell Global is, in turn, majority owned by Orgenesis.
So far this year, MastherCell has added a number of new clients.
In March, Norwegian company Zelluna Immunotherapy appointed the company as its CDMO partner, covering Zelluna's TCR adoptive cell therapy platform.
More recently, in October, Masthercell signed deals with the Korean Kangstem Biotech and Iovance Therapeutics. The latter company hooked up with Masthercell to support its cancer immunotherapies. Through a three-year manufacturing services agreement, the company will manufacture tumor infiltrating lymphocyte therapies for Iovance's European late-stage clinical trials.
These deals, along with one with CRISPR Therapeutics last year, suggest a strategy of partnering with companies early in development and expanding thereafter as companies evolve.