Novartis has signed an initial agreement with Carisma Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical pioneer in engineered macrophage-based therapeutics, to manufacture the HER 2 targeted CAR-M cell therapy, which is tested in initial trials for the treatment of solid tumors.
 
The Carisma Therapeutics manufacturing process will be transferred to the Novartis Cell Therapy Site in Morris Plains, NJ, in the coming days. Clinical manufacturing is planned to begin in 2023.
 
“The Global Biotech Cooperations unit of Novartis is fully committed to collaborate with Carisma Therapeutics to bring their CAR-M cell therapy to patients by offering its proven state-of-the art cell and gene production capabilities,” said Anton Gerdenitsch, Head of the Contract Manufacturing Organization at Novartis Technical Operations. “As one of the world’s largest producers of medicines, Novartis can mobilize its manufacturing capacity in an efficient way on multiple fronts.”
 
This new agreement follows contract manufacturing agreements signed last year with BioNTech, for the filling of the Covid vaccine at the Novartis Technical Operations’ sites in Stein, Switzerland, and in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
 
Novartis offers world-class capabilities to other companies to take over manufacturing activities including a variety of technologies such as mRNA production. 
 
Carisma is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing a differentiated and proprietary cell therapy platform focused on engineered macrophages, cells that play a crucial role in both the innate and adaptive immune response. The first applications of the platform, developed in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, are autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-macrophages for the treatment of solid tumors. Carisma is headquartered in Philadelphia, PA.