Last month, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), a global biopharmaceutical company, announced it is expanding the company’s footprint in Illinois with the addition of a new manufacturing facility in Libertyville. The new U.S. facility is planned to transition to Bristol Myers Squibb over the course of 2023 and will add to more than 140 employees in the state, working across multiple functions, including Sales, Corporate Affairs, and Market Access.
With a focus in Oncology, Hematology, Immunology and Cardiovascular disease, BMS is inspired by a single vision – transforming patients’ lives through science.
Libertyville Manufacturing Facility Expansion
Over the last several decades, innovative medicines from BMS have improved how cancer is treated, making long-term survival a possibility for more patients. Building on this heritage of innovation, BMS is working to unlock the full potential of cell therapy, a highly personalized type of cancer immunotherapy that continues to transform the treatment landscape. In fact, BMS is the only company with two approved chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies against two distinct targets and diseases.
The new Libertyville facility has the capacity to produce viral vectors for both CAR T cell therapies, advancing the company’s long-term ambitions in cell therapy at a time when demand for viral vectors is increasing significantly.
Manufacturing cell therapies is both operationally and technically complex because they are manufactured uniquely for each individual patient, using a patient’s own T cells as the starting material. Viral vectors are a key component of engineering CAR T cells made for infusion back to the patient.
The Libertyville site will strengthen the long-term viral vector supply, with multi-product, in-house viral vector production capabilities, which complements existing BMS external partnerships to manufacture current and next-generation vector technology and increase future capacity.
According to Lynelle Hoch, senior vice president, Global Cell Therapy Franchise Lead, BMS, “Bringing viral vector production in-house helps us further build our leadership position in cell therapy with potential for more patients to get treated by one of our transformational cell therapies. The strong demand for our differentiated and transformational cell therapies underscores their value to patients, and we are committed to pursuing opportunities to bring these treatments to patients in need.”
The facility in Libertyville adds to the company’s three state-of-art cell therapy manufacturing facilities in Bothell, WA, Warren, NJ and Summit, NJ, with two additional manufacturing sites in Devens, MA and Leiden, Netherlands in development.
Cardiovascular Disease Leadership
In addition to its contributions to the fight against cancer, for more than 60 years, BMS has been a trailblazer in tackling cardiovascular disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men, women, and people of most racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.[1]
As a leader in cardiovascular research, BMS has pioneered science behind many game-changing targets including ACE inhibitors, statins, P2Y12 inhibitors and FXa and FXIa inhibitors – and over the years have translated this science into life-saving medicines that have treated millions of patients around the world.
Last year, BMS announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first treatment for Obstructive Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy or HCM. HCM is the most common heritable heart disease and can affect anyone regardless of age, gender, race, or ethnicity.[2]
HCM causes the heart muscles to thicken and obstruct blood flow, which can lead to symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath, and fatigue, as well as higher risk of blood clots, stroke, and, in rare cases, cardiac arrest.[3] It is sometimes described as a “hidden disease” because people who have it may not always experience symptoms, or the symptoms may be similar to that of other health conditions. In fact, young athletes can face increased risks associated with HCM, as it is the most common cause of cardiac death in young people and competitive athletes in North America.2 Knowing the signs and symptoms of HCM and one’s family history is the first step in receiving an accurate diagnosis.2
To help raise awareness of the disease and acknowledge the critical importance of HCM to improve cardiovascular health, BMS has been partnering with state legislatures across the country, including the Illinois General Assembly, to adopt proclamations and resolutions to designate the fourth Wednesday in February as “HCM Awareness Day.”
Above and Beyond: Moving Research Beyond Earth’s Boundaries
Beyond any therapeutic area, BMS’ scientists must think outside the box in search of solutions for patients, and the company’s research teams have taken their work beyond the boundaries of Earth into space.
A team of BMS’ R&D and Global Product Development and Supply (GPS) divisions are sending experiments into space to study how microgravity conditions may better support protein crystallization that could bring new medical innovation for patients.
This research started in the summer of 2018, when the company responded to a request for proposals from the Center for Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), a non-profit organization and manager of the International Space Station National Laboratory (ISSNL). That research led to BMS’ first mission in 2020 and then followed with its second mission earlier this year. The objective of these missions is to identify the physical conditions that result in large, high-quality crystals in microgravity, which could lead to a better understanding of how to make one day some of our biologics medicines in crystal form. A crystallized therapeutic could have greater stability and a more concentrated dosing strength.
Crystalizing a protein can be tricky and requires extremely specific conditions as far as its pH level, salt concentration and temperature. The quality and size of the crystals are dictated by these conditions, and many proteins don’t crystallize well on Earth. Space-grown crystals, however, are typically larger and have fewer defects than those prepared on the ground.
“As our portfolio gets more complex, we have to come up with innovative ways to understand our compounds and solve problems,” said Robert Garmise, Associate Director in the company’s Materials Science & Engineering group, and leader of the company’s space station research project.
For patients, this research could someday lead to quick, at-home injections versus lengthy, periodic infusions in a hospital or treatment center. For drugmakers, if a crystallized protein doesn’t require freezing or refrigeration for storage, and takes up less space, it could offer significant savings for supply chain, while also potentially reducing environmental impact.
Garmise noted, “At BMS, we’re not constrained to the bounds of Earth and conventional technologies and environments to answer questions and develop the best quality drug products for our patients.”
To learn more about BMS, visit www.bms.com
[1] CDC. Heart Disease Facts. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Published July 15, 2022. Accessed September 12, 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm
[2] HCMA. How common is HCM/HOCM. Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association. Published 2021. Accessed September 9, 2022. https://4hcm.org/hcm-prevalence/
[3] American Heart Association. Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM). www.heart.org. Published May 13, 2022. https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/cardiomyopathy/what-is-cardiomyopathy-in-adults/hypertrophic-cardiomyopathy