A cell and gene therapy development center is taking 680K square feet at KOP's Discovery Labs

About half a year later, nearly all its square footage has been accounted for, Audrey Greenberg, executive managing director of the Discovery Labs, told Technical.Included is a big get for the region: The Discovery Labs and Deerfield Management Company have formed The Center for Breakthrough Medicines, a contract development and manufacturing organization and specialty investment company, the Discovery Labs announced this week.The Center for Breakthrough Medicines leased 680,000 square feet of Discovery Labs’ facility to provide pre-clinical through commercial manufacturing of cell and gene therapies, including process development, plasmid DNA, viral vectors, cell banking, cell processing and support testing capabilities.Its goal is to “to alleviate the critical lack of capacity that is preventing patients from accessing critically needed cell and gene therapies,” Discovery Labs said.

The real tragedy, however, is a scarcity of manufacturing know-how, which is complex and expensive,” said Alex Karnal, partner and managing director of Deerfield Management and a board member of the Discovery Labs, in a statement.Currently, Philadelphia is home to the only Discovery Labs campus, but the company is looking toward expanding with locations on the West Coast, in Asia and in Europe.