Novartis invests in CAR-T development centre on Penn Medicine Campus

The University of Pennsylvania informed in a press release about an important milestone in its alliance with Novartis. The university unveiled plans for the construction of a first-of-its-kind Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics (CACT) on the Penn Medicine campus in Philadelphia. The 30'000-square foot facility will be funded in part through a $20 million investment from Novartis and should be completed by 2016. It will be devoted to the discovery, development and manufacturing of personalized cellular cancer therapies, through a joint research and development program led by scientists and clinicians from Penn and Novartis. According to the press release, the CACT will become «the epicenter» for research using Chimeric Antigen Receptor technology (CAR), which enables a patient's T cells to be reprogrammed outside of the body so when they are re-infused into the patient, the'T cells have the ability to «hunt» and destroy the cancer cells. News article on FierceBiotech The complete press release from the University of Pennsylvania More from i-net related to CAR-T technology developed by Novartis: - University of Pennsylvania and Novartis present groundbreaking results at ASH - Novartis buys US based immunotherapy start-up