Posted: 27 July 2023
Australia’s only biomedical manufacturing site where CAR T-cells and other “living” cancer therapies can be made at commercial scale has expanded to meet future patient demand.
Federal Minister for Health and Aged Care, the Honourable Mark Butler MP, today toured and officially opened the expanded facility at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne.
The works were completed as part of a $105 million project, announced in 2019, and which also includes construction of dedicated facilities for patients receiving these therapies at Peter Mac.
The funding included $80 million from the Federal Government, and the additional $25 million was contributed by Peter Mac and generous donors to the Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation to advance cellular therapy research and patient care activities.
Minister Butler said each year more than 160,000 Australians were diagnosed with cancer and, among these, more than 19,000 would be diagnosed with blood cancer.
“It is inspiring to see how much these individualised cancer treatments, being developed and manufactured here in Melbourne, can change people’s lives,” Mr Butler says.
Operated by Cell Therapies Pty Ltd, and partner manufacturer for the Centre of Excellence in Cellular Immunotherapy at Peter Mac, the expanded GMP-grade facility:
- can make up to 2,000 CAR T-cell (or other cell or gene therapy) patient doses a year, up 400% from previous capacity
- has added more than 75 biomedical jobs, and is the nation’s largest trainer for cell therapy laboratory roles
- has 1,700 square metres of new, additional lab and clean room space.
Peter Mac Chief Executive Professor Shelley Dolan said completing the manufacturing expansion was a major step forward for cancer patients in Australia and the Asia Pacific. The dedicated patient facility will open later this year.
With the Federal Government’s support, we are delivering on our vision for a world-class cellular immunotherapy centre in Australia and based at Peter Mac,” Prof Dolan said.
“The expanded manufacturing site has the necessary scale to provide CAR T-cell and other emerging cellular therapies to a growing number of patients in Australia and our region, and to support the rapid advances in related clinical and discovery-based research.”
Director of the Centre of Excellence in Cellular Immunotherapy Professor Simon Harrison said: “CAR T-cell therapy represents the pinnacle of personalised medicine as it involves collecting a patient’s own immune cells, re-engineering these cells so they recognise cancer, and infusing these re-engineered cells back into the patient.”
“Cellular therapies are living treatments that persist and expand in the body, and this approach has revolutionised how we treat many aggressive blood cancers and there is great hope they will do the same for solid tumours in the future.”
Acting Chief Executive of Cell Therapies Pty Ltd, Associate Professor Dominic Wall said the pandemic and global unrest had demonstrated the vulnerability of global supply chains and the value of onshore manufacturing capability.
“These expanded facilities at Peter Mac are now on par with only a handful of sites globally and combined with a highly specialised workforce, mean we have the ability to make more of these cutting-edge treatments locally, rather than importing them, and to even export these products.”
Construction of the expanded manufacturing facilities and dedicated clinical unit has been ongoing within the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre building, with support from Plenary Health, Honeywell Pty Ltd and building contractor Minicon Construction.
