Biontech is strengthening itself in the area of cancer immunotherapies

The Mainz biotech company Biontech is strengthening itself in the area of cancer immunotherapies with an acquisition in the USA. Biontech is taking over a production facility in Gaithersburg in the US state of Maryland from Kite Pharma, a subsidiary of the American biotech group Gilead, as the company announced. It is intended to complement the existing cell therapy production facility in Idar-Oberstein and accelerate the development of cancer drugs in this field. For this purpose, Biontech is also buying a research platform for TCR cell therapies from Kite. Financial details were not given. Biontech bought the US company Neon Therapeutics for $ 67 million last year to expand its position in T-cell therapies. The Mainz-based biotech company is now best known for its Covid-19 vaccine, but was founded with the aim of developing individualized cancer therapies. The most advanced cancer drug from Biontech in collaboration with Roche subsidiary Genentech is in the second of three phases of clinical development. TCR therapies are among the cancer immunotherapies that aim to activate the body's own defense system so that it can recognize and destroy cancer cells. In this therapy, doctors remove T cells from the patient's immune system, modify them genetically with the aim of recognizing the cancer cells as hostile, and then give them back to the patient. Companies such as Bayer, Novartis and Johnson & Johnson are also researching in this area.