Kite Pharma has announced plans for a new 67,000-square-foot facility in Oceanside, California. The project is dedicated to the development and manufacturing of viral vectors, a critical starting material in the production of cell therapies. A Santa Monica-based company, Kite is part of biotech giant Gilead.
The plan is to build the infrastructure within Gilead biologics operations facility in Oceanside in California, and will become part of Kite’s growing commercial manufacturing network that also includes sites in Maryland (US) and the Netherlands.
Upon completion, the manufacturing site will deliver cell therapies for people with cancer, including Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel), Kite’s first commercially available chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR T) cell therapy, as well as Kite’s investigational T cell receptor (TCR) and tumor neoantigen targeting cell therapies being evaluated in solid tumors.