Artiva Biotherapeutics Builds New US Cell Therapy R&D and Manufacturing Facility

Artiva Biotherapeutics, an oncology company specializing in primary allogeneic natural killer (NK) cell therapies to treat cancer, announced on Aug. 12, 2021 an expansion of its US presence with a new R&D and good manufacturing practice (GMP) manufacturing facility in San Diego, Calif., for cell therapies. The new 52,000-ft² facility will include research and process development laboratories as well as a multi-suite custom-built GMP manufacturing center that will support NK and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-NK cell production for the company’s pipeline development and clinical trial supply. The facility is expected to be completed in 2022.

The new facility and capabilities build on Artiva’s continued research and GMP manufacturing operations at the Korea-based cell center of its partner, GC LabCell. GC LabCell’s cell center consists of research labs, process development labs, and a 50,000-ft² GMP cell therapy manufacturing facility.

Artiva’s cell therapies leverage the anti-tumor activity and safety features of NK cells, which are further optimized using the company’s AlloNK platform. The platform supports targeted anti-cancer activity by either genetically expressing CARs to drive tumor cell engagement or combining with therapeutic antibodies or innate-cell engagers to enhance antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity. In addition, Artiva’s manufacturing platform supports large-scale production and cryopreservation of off-the-shelf allogeneic NK cell therapies as well as proprietary CAR-NK and NK-specific gene-editing technologies that augment therapeutic activity.

“Artiva’s new San Diego R&D and manufacturing facility is an important element of the [c]ompany’s expansion and will support research and development for our evolving pipeline of optimized NK and CAR-NK cell therapies for the treatment of cancer,” said Peter Flynn, COO of Artiva, in a company press release. “The custom-built manufacturing center will produce clinical product and position Artiva for pivotal studies and potential commercial supply.”

“Artiva’s manufacturing-first approach, leveraging more than 10 years of pioneering NK cell therapy R&D by GC LabCell, has enabled us to successfully initiate clinical trials of our first allogeneic, cryopreserved, off-the-shelf NK cell therapy and positions us to file INDs [investigational new drug applications] on two novel and distinct CAR-NK cell therapy programs in 2022,” added Fred Aslan, CEO of Artiva, in the press release.

Source: Artiva Biotherapeutics