Dive Brief:
- Up-and-coming CAR-T developer Mustang Bio Inc. has locked down a production facility to better support clinical development of its cell therapy pipeline, announcing this week it will lease a site in the UMass Medicine Science Park in Worcester, Massachusetts.
- The lease agreement for the 27,000 square foot facility will run through November 2026, with an option for two additional five-year extensions, according to a company filing. Mustang will pay $3.6 million in base rent on a triple-net basis, which strips out facility expenses and real estate taxes the company would owe.
- "Establishing top-notch manufacturing capabilities early on is essential to the long-term success of CAR T programs," said company CEO Manual Litchman in an Oct. 30 statement.
Dive Insight:
The CAR-T field has taken two major steps forward in recent months with the U.S. approval of Novartis AG's Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia and Gilead Sciences Inc.'s Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) in adult patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.
Although Novartis and Kite Pharma (now part of Gilead) have led the way in CAR-T, an expanding crop of biotechs have begun to fill out the sector behind them. Larger companies like Juno Therapeutics Inc. and Bluebird Bio Inc. appear next in line, with firms like Mustang coming up fast.
One of the key challenges in CAR-T development is ensuring a rapid and efficient manufacturing process for the individualized treatments. Production of each "drug" requires specialized facilities to ensure the integrity of the patient's cells while they are being genetically engineered to target cancers.
Mustang say its manufacturing facility should be up and running in 2018 and will initially be used to support development of the biotech's lead candidates: MB-101 in glioblastoma and MB-102 in acute myeloid leukemia and blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm.
The company's broader pipeline includes six CAR-T candidates, although only MB-101 and MB-102 have advanced beyond preclinical stage. Phase 1 data for MB-102, a CD123-specific CAR, will be presented next month at this year's annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology.
Mustang is one of ten subsidiaries of Fortress Biotech Inc., an organization that sits somewhere between a venture firm and a biotech holding company.
