Penn, Novartis building facility to engineer cells that hunt and destroy cancer

The University of Pennsylvania, as part of its partnership with Novartis, has unveiled plans to build what it's describing as a “first-of-its-kind” Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics on its University City campus.

The 30,000-square-foot center — which is expected to employ 100 “highly specialized” biomedical researchers — will focus on discovering, developing and manufacturing personal cellular cancer therapies designed to hunt for, and destroy, cancer cells. It will be located at 34th and Civic Center Boulevard, on top of the now-existing Jordan Medical Education Center.

The organizations are using chimeric antigen receptor technology discovered by Penn researchers. The technology involves reprogramming a patient’s T cell outside of the body, so when they are re-infused into the patient, the T cells can go on the attack against cancer cells.

Penn, in 2012, entered an exclusive global research and licensing agreement with Novartis (NYSE: NVS) of Basil, Switzerland, under which the organizations are working together to further study and commercialize the chimeric antigen receptor technology.

Penn reported that using the technology in children and adults with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia — a fast-moving blood cancer that is often deadly among patients who relapse after undergoing first-line therapies — 89 percent of trial participants’ cancers were put into remission within just a few weeks of receiving the new cells. The therapy received an "breakthrough" designation from the Food and Drug Administration in July.

The creation of the Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics will be funded in part through a $20 million investment from Novartis. It will be constructed as part of a building plan for the rear of Penn’s Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine — atop of the eight-story Jordan Medical Education Center and south pavilion extension currently under construction. The Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics, expected to open in 2016, will adjoin the existing cancer therapeutics floor in the Smilow Center for Translational Research, allowing it to be fully integrated with Penn Medicine’s research and clinical operations.

“The past five years have been a time of explosive, exciting progress in the field of cancer cellular therapy,” said Dr. Carl H. June, director of translational research in Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center. “The results we’ve seen among the leukemia patients we’ve treated using our ‘hunter’ cells have accelerated our expectations for the potential of these new therapies. Today, many of those brave patients are thriving, and through our work in the [Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics], we hope to offer that chance to patients with many other types of cancers.”

Mark Fishman, president of the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, called the center a “testimony to the power that comes from merging academic discovery directly to the generation of new medicines.”

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal