Novartis moves to buy CAR-T cell producer CellforCure from LFB

Novartis today revealed its offer to buy a French contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMO) producing cell and gene therapies in Europe, Cellforcure.

As revealed in the press release Thursday, Novartis would acquire the share capital of CellforCure from LFB including the cell and gene factory and land in Les Ulis. If the offer is accepted, CellforCure would become a wholly owned Novartis manufacturing site, joining the network of cell and gene therapy sites including Morris Plains, New Jersey, USA and Stein, Switzerland, where Novartis said looks to continue planned construction progress.

In July 2018, Novartis announced that it had signed an agreement with CellforCure to produce CAR-T cell therapies including Kymriah, the first CAR-T cell therapy approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and indicated for two distinct, difficult-to-treat cancers in the United States, European Union, Switzerland, Canada and Australia.

Novartis noted that it has successfully completed technology transfer with CellforCure, and that it expects to kick-off with Kymriah clinical supply production by mid-2019.

Novartis has made several steps recently to strengthen and expand its cell and gene manufacturing, including signing a strategic licensing, te in Germany to support manufacturing for clinical trials and post approval manufacturing; and a contract manufacturing collaboration in Japan.

Novartis Global Head of Technical Operations Steffen Lang said: “The proposed acquisition of CellforCure is another strategic step in our pursuit of additional manufacturing capacity to make our transformational CAR-T cell therapy Kymriah available to more patients in need around the world. If completed, this acquisition also would potentially increase manufacturing capacity for other cell and gene therapies in the Novartis pipeline. We are excited about the possibility of adding the significant experience of CellforCureto our existing leadership in pioneering research, development and supply of cell and gene therapies.”