Japanese drugmaker Takeda has trumpeted its plan in recent years to cut billions of dollars in costs and pivot around oncology and rare diseases. A key part of that strategy is Takeda's next-gen cell therapies, and the company is now doubling down to get those products to market.
Takeda has opened a 24,000-square-foot R&D manufacturing center in Boston as the Japanese drugmaker works to flesh out a bustling cell therapy pipeline focused immediately on immuno-oncology, Takeda said Tuesday.
The newest facility, part of Takeda's pivot to Boston for its U.S. operations, will handle clinical development for three ongoing pipeline programs and two other projects expected to enter clinical development by the end of 2021, the drugmaker said.
The slate of projects currently in development includes TAK-007, a phase 1/2 chimeric antigen receptor-directed natural killer (CAR-NK) cell therapy that Takeda is studying to treat non-Hodgkin lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Takeda also two CAR-T therapies in the pipe: TAK-940, a Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center-partnered therapy to treat relapsed/refractory B-cell cancers; and TAK-102, a solid-tumor hunter developed alongside Noile-Immune Biotech.
While Takeda's focus will initially be on its I-O pipeline, the drugmaker could eventually expand its efforts out to cell therapies beyond cancer, the company said.
