Lonza Enters Manufacturing Agreement with Cellectis for CAR T Cell Development

Lonza announced it is entering into a manufacturing service agreement with Cellectis, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that specializes in developing immunotherapies based on allogeneic gene-edited chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells (UCART), for the clinical manufacturing of Cellectis’ allogeneic UCART product candidates targeting hematological malignancies.

Manufacturing of the cell line will take place at Lonza’s GMP facility in Geleen, Netherlands where the frozen, off-the-shelf, non-alloreactive engineered CAR T cells will be industrialized with defined pharmaceutical release criteria for the patient population, according to an Oct. 1, 2019 press release. 

“This agreement not only bolsters our product supply for clinical trials, but it ensures that we are producing first-rate product candidates so that we can potentially deliver new hope to patients living with certain blood cancers,” said William Monteith, executive president, Technical Operations, Cellectis, in the press release. 

“We will draw on the experience at our cell and gene therapy center of excellence in the Netherlands, ideally equipped to support Cellectis in bringing their promising pipeline of allogeneic CAR-T therapies to people around the world in need of life-saving products,” added Alberto Santagostino, senior vice president, head of Cell & Gene Technologies, Lonza, in the press release. 

Source: Lonza