Merit Holdings Limited has been appointed to build a new manufacturing facility for Autolus Therapeutics in Stevenage.

The 70,000 square foot facility is being developed by Merit as general contractor for the Reef Group, who will lease the facility to Autolus. Global commercial launch capacity for obecabtagene autoleucel (obe-cel) will initially be provided by the existing clinical trial manufacturing facility at The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGTC) facility, and will then move to the new Autolus facility which will allow for GMP capacity for approximately 2,000 batches a year initially, with scope to expand.

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"Stevenage is rapidly becoming one of Europe’s largest clusters for biotechnology and the establishment of our own manufacturing facility will secure global commercial launch capacity for obe-cel," said Dr. Christian Itin, chief executive officer of Autolus. "We are excited by the progress we are making with obe-cel for the treatment of adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and expect data from the pivotal FELIX study in 2022."