Kite Pharma, a Gilead company, plans to expand manufacturing capacity with a new biologics facility in Urbana, MD. Kite specializes in cancer treatments and is expanding its ability to provide both clinical and commercial treatments. The facility will focus on chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) therapies, which uses a patient’s white blood cells to destroy cancer cells. Producing these therapies requires complex processes and the new facility will enable the company to better meet these specifications. It will become part of Kite’s commercial manufacturing network that includes sites in CA and the Netherlands.
 
The facility will significantly expand Kite’s ability to manufacture a variety of CAR-T) therapies, including Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel), Kite’s first commercially available CAR-T cancer therapy, and investigational T cell receptor (TCR) cell therapies being evaluated in solid tumors.
 
"This new facility in Urbana builds on our substantial technical capabilities and rapid progress in making personalized chimeric antigen receptor T and T cell receptor cell therapies for people with cancer. As we advance our industry-leading cell therapy pipeline and seek to help a growing number of people with cancer, expanding and investing in our manufacturing capabilities is essential," Tim Moore, executive vice president of technical operations at Kite. "With the Urbana site, we will have the opportunity to build and design the facility tailored to our own innovative processes and with state-of-the-art features that will enable us to meet the future needs for cell therapies."  
 
The Maryland Department of Commerce is providing assistance in the form of a $2 million conditional loan from the Advantage Maryland Fund and a $200,000 workforce training grant through the Partnership for Workforce Quality program. Frederick County is also providing a commercial and industrial tax credit.

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