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Area Development - Site Selection, Facility Planning and Workforce Development

Kite Pharma Plans Biologics Manufacturing Plant in Frederick County, Maryland

04/24/2019
Kite Pharma, a California-based biopharmaceutical company that develops innovative cancer immunotherapies, plans today to open a new biologics manufacturing facility in Frederick County, Maryland.

According to company officials the new facility will produce innovative cell therapies for people with cancer. A Gilead company, Kite will open the new facility on a 20-acre site in the Urbana Corporate Center, with plans to create a significant number of job opportunities.

“This new facility in Urbana builds on our substantial technical capabilities and rapid progress in making personalized chimeric antigen receptor T and T cell receptor cell therapies for people with cancer,” said Tim Moore, Executive Vice President of Technical Operations at Kite. “As we advance our industry-leading cell therapy pipeline and seek to help a growing number of people with cancer, expanding and investing in our manufacturing capabilities is essential. With the Urbana site, we will have the opportunity to build and design the facility tailored to our own innovative processes and with state-of-the-art features that will enable us to meet the future needs for cell therapies.”

With this new facility, Kite will significantly expand its ability to manufacture commercially available and investigational cell therapies. The Urbana facility will become part of Kite’s growing commercial manufacturing network that includes sites in California and the Netherlands.

Tom Natelli, Owner of Urbana developer Natelli Communities, said, "It takes a coordinated effort by Frederick County, working in concert with the local business community, to meet the unique requirements of Global Companies like Kite (Gilead). Today's news was largely made possible by Jan Gardner's leadership and commitment to bringing high-quality job opportunities to Frederick County for the long-term benefit of our community. Jan and her professional staff have been just outstanding, and I doubt any other regional jurisdiction could have delivered the way she and her team did to pave the way for this fantastic outcome for the County."

“This is great news for Frederick County,” Frederick County Executive Jan Gardner said. “Our businesses on are on the leading edge of finding the cure for cancer. We’re excited to welcome Kite to our life science and biopharma family. We were pleased to fast-track their project and want them to know our support will continue into the future.

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