Atara Biotherapeutics

History

2022: Fujifilm Medical Systems bought Atara Biotherapeutics for $100 million

On January 26, 2022, Fujifilm Medical Systems announced the acquisition of a cell therapy plant from Atara Biotherapeutics for $100 million. Fujifilm plans to offer vacancies to 140 employees of the plant.

The plant with an area of ​ ​ 8 thousand square meters. m in, as Atara Biotherapeutics notes, production is easy to scale, and the plant also has flexibility for the production of clinical and commercial drugs, including allogeneic T cells and immunotherapy of the chimeric antigen receptor Atara Biotherapeutics opened the plant in June 2018. But in 2020, the company teamed up with Bayer to work on a ready-made T-cell immunotherapy for lung cancer. In 2021, Bayer revealed plans to build a separate $200 million cell therapy plant in Berkeley.

Fujifilm bought a cell therapy plant for $100 million

As part of the deal, Fujifilm's manufacturing campus division will begin a long-term manufacturing agreement to help produce drugs for Atara Biotherapeutics' clinical line. The therapy itself consists of white blood cells called cytotoxic T lymphocytes, which have been propagated in the laboratory, starting with cells of a healthy person immune to infection. Cells recognize and destroy infected transplant recipient cells. This is necessary for the treatment of lymphoproliferative disease caused by Epstein-Barr virus after transplantation.

We believe that by the end of January 2022, the time is right for a strategic relationship with Fujifilm to provide us with access to the expert manufacturing capabilities that Atara Biotherapeutics will need when needed. Now we will be able to confidently direct our capital resources to the development and commercialization of our first-of-its-kind therapeutic drugs for the treatment of severe diseases, "said Pascal Touchon, CEO of Atara Biotherapeutics.

For Fujifilm, the company will supplement the cell therapy production site due to the fact that at the end of 2021 the company also began construction of a large $2 billion plant in Holly Springs, North Carolina, which will employ 725 employees and is called the world's largest plant for the integrated production of biologics. The company plans to add 150 employees as part of the modernization, which is planned to be completed by 2024, which will make it the largest production town in North America.

Fujifilm management also spoke about its plan to invest $533 million in its Teesside plant, which is located in the UK. This will allow the company to expand the capabilities of the enterprise in the field of production of biological preparations, viral gene therapy, production of RNA, containing information on the primary structure of proteins and other species.^[1]

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