The Team Sport of Cell Therapy

As the CEO of a leading cell therapy company, my goal is to make sure Kite delivers potentially lifesaving treatments to patients who have exhausted other options against cancer. Broadening the use of cell therapy to help more patients with earlier-stage disease and decreasing the time it takes to deliver these personalized therapies to patients are among my top priorities.

I am proud of Kite’s progress in expanding the use of cell therapy to multiple cancer types. Our therapies can now be used to treat three different types of lymphoma: large B-cell lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma, follicular lymphoma and one form of leukemia – B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in adults.

But as an industry we can do more. In B-cell lymphoma, for example, studies show that only 20% of patients eligible for cell therapies actually receive them. Yet we know that these therapies can increase survival from months to years for some patients; we may even be close to delivering true cures.

We also need to get these treatments to patients quicker. Among Kite’s strengths is our manufacturing speed and reliability with a 96% success rate in the US. It is approximately 16 to 17 days from the moment a patient’s T cells are collected to the moment that the patient receives newly engineered CAR T-cells. That is industry leading, but for patients who are critically ill, we need to move faster, and we are working to reach patients earlier in their treatment journey.

We continue to invest significant resources to maintain our leadership in cell therapy manufacturing. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, we opened a new facility in the Netherlands to better serve patients outside of the US. Another state-of-the-art manufacturing site will come online in Maryland in 2022. These commercialization capabilities – especially our technical operations – are significant differentiators for us. Despite the substantial disruptions to supply chains because of COVID-19, I am very pleased that we never missed delivering a single patient dose.

Partnering to outperform

Our commitment to supply chain and manufacturing excellence also makes Kite a partner of choice for organizations with cutting edge science that aren’t capitalized, or don’t want to, make the large financial investments required to commercialize cell therapies. We have a wealth of translational data and commercial knowledge, which means that we can help our partners accelerate their pipelines.

This ability to combine our expertise with another company’s is different from the traditional business development approach. The typical options were either to invest equity in an early-stage company and remain hands off or take 100% ownership through an acquisition. Our recent deals with Daiichi Sankyo in Japan and Fosun Kite in China are true commercial partnerships. They extend beyond the transfer of technology.

Both relationships are mentorships, in which Kite and the partner are engaged in every step of the cell therapy process, with each party leveraging what they do best. These models are mutually beneficial. And we have evidence the approach works. By letting Fosun Kite lead in China, we had a very successful launch of cell therapy in that country, treating many patients in the first month.

A team sport

We don’t just partner with life sciences companies. Delivering a cell therapy to a patient is a team sport. We have close relationships with logistics providers and airlines to maintain our on-time delivery schedule. We collaborate with academic centers, regulators, patient advocacy groups and health systems as well. It’s truly a team effort.

Another critical partner is our parent company, Gilead. Our corporate structure means Kite has the autonomy where it really needs it – R&D, technical operations, commercial decisions and corporate development. We’re also able to tap into key enabling functions such as Finance, IT and HR and avoid duplicating resources. That allows us to stay focused on how we use cell therapy in oncology to meet patients’ needs.

How can we improve patient outcomes? How do we make our therapies better, faster, so that more patients may be cured and health care costs reduced? If we can answer these questions, we truly will make a difference for patients and for health care systems.

This article originally appeared in the 10th edition of the annual EY M&A Firepower Report.