A group of Massachusetts academic, healthcare, biotech, and biopharma industry leaders have come together to establish a new center to address the bottleneck in the discovery of novel immunotherapies and other emerging medicine. The new facility for advanced biological innovation and manufacturing will explore and cultivate innovations in cell and gene therapy, advance biologic innovation and manufacturing, and accelerate developments in immunotherapy, cell therapies, gene editing, and other technologies that carry the promise of lasting impact on human health globally and boosting the local economy, according to Harvard officials.
By fostering collaboration and innovation, the goal of the center is to speed innovation and broaden the universe of patients that can be served by these emerging therapies.
Leaders from Harvard University, MIT, Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, GE Healthcare Life Sciences, and Alexandria Real Estate Equities will comprise the board of directors, while other contributing members include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, MilliporeSigma, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The $50 million center will be an independent nonprofit organization located in the greater Boston area and will be named, along with incorporation, in the new year. The expectation is that this will be an independent, separate nonprofit corporation.
The main mission of the newly established consortium is to catalyze the development of transformative therapies by shortening the path between research and clinical application. The consortium will tap into world-leading expertise to propel forward fast-emerging and promising science, the cost and risks of which are daunting for any single institution to tackle alone, noted a Harvard official. By housing institutions with strengths in each link in the chain of innovation within one facility, the partners believe new advances in both science and manufacturing will speed the introduction of new medicines to patients.
