BIDMC Joins Local Universities, Teaching Hospitals and Industry Partners in Creating New Central Facility for Regenerative Therapies

New center for innovating and manufacturing next-generation therapies planned for metro Boston

Boston, Mass. – Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) is among a group of leading hospitals, universities, large pharmaceutical companies, small biotech firms and industry partners working together to create a new center for advanced biological innovation and manufacturing.  The new center will explore and cultivate innovations in cell and gene therapy, advance biologic innovation and manufacturing, and accelerate developments in immunotherapy, cell therapies, gene editing, and other technologies that carry the promise of lasting impact on human health globally. By fostering collaboration and innovation, this center seeks to speed innovation and broaden the universe of patients that can be served by these emerging therapies.

“Our mission at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is to provide extraordinary care supported by world-class research and education,” said Peter J. Healy, President of BIDMC. “We are happy to be a founding member of this innovative consortium, which will allow us to work collaboratively across the diverse health care ecosystem. Together, we will propel the fields of cell therapy, gene therapy and gene editing forward with the shared goal of transforming how we care for patients right here in Boston and around the world.”

Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies (FDB), GE Healthcare Life Sciences, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., will comprise the Board of Directors, while BIDMC joins other contributing members, including Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, MilliporeSigma and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The overarching mission of the newly established consortium is to catalyze the development of transformative therapies by shortening the path between research and clinical application. The consortium will harness world-leading expertise to propel forward fast-emerging and promising science, the cost and risks of which are daunting for any single institution to tackle alone. By housing institutions with strengths in each link in the “chain of innovation” within one facility, the partners believe new innovations in both science and manufacturing will speed the introduction of new therapies to patients.

“This new innovative consortium and facility will provide unique resources for our investigators to facilitate translation of research findings to clinical applications in cell-based and other novel therapies,” said Gyongyi Szabo, MD, PhD, FAASLD, AGAF, FACP, Chief Academic Officer of BIDMC and Beth Israel Lahey Health. “Today, more than 30 funded investigators at BIDMC are already engaged in early stage innovation focused on preclinical engineering of viral vectors, mammalian cells and cell manufacturing. BIDMC’s membership in this facility will provide an accelerated path for our investigators to bring these preclinical studies to Phase I and Phase II clinical trials.” 

BIDMC houses a number of state of the art core facilities and laboratories on the leading edge of biotechnology. The Non-Coding RNA Precision Diagnostics and Therapeutics Core Facility is a pre-clinical facility at BIDMC and HMS dedicated to non-coding RNA, offering informatics, sequencing, imaging and delivery of therapeutics in vitro. BIDMC is also home to the Randi and Brian Schwartz Family Cancer Immunotherapy and Cell Manipulation Facility, a laboratory that serves as a hub for BIDMC’s state of the art program in personalized cell therapy for cancer. This facility is a critical resource in which BIDMC's physician-scientists produce innovative immune-based treatments, including national leadership of a promising experimental therapeutic vaccine against several forms of blood cancer.

The $50 million center will be an independent non-profit organization located in the greater Boston area and will be named in the new year.