Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre is working with Honeywell to power the formers’ A$105-million (about US$340 million) cell and gene therapy manufacturing facility in Melbourne, Australia.
Co-funded by the Australian Federal Government, Peter Mac and individual donors, the facility that is compliant to Good Manufacturing Process (GMP) was completed in 2023. It is operated by the contract development and manufacturing organisation Cell Therapies.
The new facility is Australia’s only biomedical manufacturing facility where CAR T-cells and “living” cell-based therapies are produced at commercial scale to treat patients with blood cancers.
As Peter Mac’s Centre of Excellence in Cellular Immunotherapies’ partner manufacturer, the new manufacturing capacity enables Cell Therapies to support their IP accelerator platform, translating Australian-led research onshore.
The manufacturing facility’s building management technologies are purpose built and managed centrally through the Honeywell Enterprise Buildings Integrator (EBI) platform to address the ecosystem’s unique needs.
These include a new Building Management System (BMS) that controls the facility’s energy and captures data to ensure it remains compliant with stringent healthcare and pharmaceutical requirements, and a new operational technology (OT) security system to protect the critical work being carried out by the facility’s scientists.
Such needs also include an environmental management and monitoring systems to ensure air temperature and humidity remain at optimal levels, and complete redundancy of mechanical services for each of the facility’s cleanrooms.
The deployment of these technologies was particularly complex because the work had to occur in a live hospital and operating environment where infection control is critical to patient safety.
The environment has also been tested against a list of requirements from the Federal Government’s Office of the Gene Technology Regulator and Therapeutic Goods Administration.
Simon Harrison, director of the Centre of Excellence in Cellular Immunotherapy, said these are bespoke building technologies that are enabling them to deliver cutting-edge treatments for people with cancer.
“The large scale, high throughput manufacturing capacity combined with our highly skilled workforce represents a sovereign advanced manufacturing capability that supports cell and gene therapy product development from concept to commercialisation,” said Bev Menner, CEO, Cell Therapies.
