Kite Therapeutics to open cell therapy manufacturing facility in Holland.

Kite Therapeutics, acquired by Gilead Sciences in 2017, is opening a new facility in Holland that will be fully operational by 2020. The facility will engineer and produce cell therapies including Yescarta, one of only two CART T drugs approved in the US, in the hope of making it easier to deliver cell therapies to cancer patients living in Europe. Yescarta is currently under review by the European Medicines Agency.
Gilead President and CEO Dr John Milligan said: “We are pleased to be leading a new frontier of cancer innovation that is bringing hope for people living with cancer. This new European manufacturing facility will enable personalised cell therapies to be manufactured in closer geographic proximity to the patients who will receive them, potentially shortening the turnaround time for people who urgently need care.”
Alessandro Riva, Gilead senior vice-president, haematology and oncology therapeutic area head said: “We are proud to be at the forefront of advancing cell therapy, which we believe has the potential to transform cancer treatment. The addition of these three new facilities and the expanded CRADA with our research collaborators at the NCI will help us bring cell therapies to more people with cancer around the world.”