CSL Behring is closing a Pasadena, CA-based R&D site and moving the operations to Massachusetts as part of a larger repositioning of the company’s gene therapy research.
A spokesperson for the company said Monday that it will deprioritize
ex vivo
lentiviral-based gene therapy work after finding overlap with existing sa-mRNA capabilities. The news was
first reported by
Fierce Biotech
on Monday.
The Pasadena facility, which CSL Behring gained from its 2017 acquisition of Calimmune, is set to close by the end of January 2025. The spokesperson said that some employees will make the cross-country move to Waltham, MA, but that 30 won’t be kept on. The Pasadena space was the company’s first in-house cell manufacturing outpost.
Investments had been pouring into the site through 2021, with
the most recent expansion
adding nearly 3,100 square feet and additional office and lab facilities. Previously, from 2018 to 2019, CSL Behring added a Good Manufacturing Practice facility plus two labs.
Reconsidering some of its gene therapy research comes as the company is looking to build demand for its hemophilia B treatment, Hemgenix. CEO Paul McKenzie
said in August
that 12 patients were treated in the 2024 fiscal year, which ended in June, with a “handful or so” treated in July.
The one-time therapy’s late 2022 entrance onto the market was polarizing, thanks to its $3.5 million list price in the US. In June 2023, BioMarin snagged FDA approval for its one-time hemophilia A treatment, Roctavian. That $2.9 million treatment has had similarly slow uptake, contributing to cost cuts and layoffs.