Cell Therapy Team Up

Thermo Fisher Scientific and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have partnered to open a new cell therapy cGMP manufacturing site, located adjacent to UCSF Medical Center’s Mission Bay Campus. The facility will be used by both UCSF researchers and Thermo Fisher Scientific’s clients.

According to Thermo Fisher Scientific (and many others in the industry), challenges in the manufacture of cell therapies – particularly at scale – are hindering broader adoption. The partnership was first announced in 2021 with the aim of overcoming some of those difficulties.

“By bringing increased capacity and our extensive experience with cell therapies to the city of San Francisco, we hope to accelerate the development of advanced cell therapies at UCSF and with the surrounding life sciences community, which is home to more than 200 biotechnology companies,” said Dan Herring, general manager for cell therapy services at Thermo Fisher Scientific. “In the future, we also hope to grow our partnerships with academia and industry focused on cell therapies, and help the industry develop novel cell therapies and other immune cell-based therapies to treat patients with blood cancers, but also those with solid tumors.”

The facility will provide process and analytical development capabilities, as well as clinical and commercial cGMP manufacturing services for autologous and allogeneic cell therapies. It includes six individual, user-configurable GMP production suites (with capacity to expand) and self-contained HVAC and related infrastructure to protect against cross-contamination. 

UCSF researchers will be using the facility to develop new therapies, with the focus initially being on treatments for glioblastoma, multiple myeloma, and other cancers using CAR-T and CRISPR technologies.