Atara closes $100M sale of Thousand Oaks facility
Atara Biotherapeutics, a drugmaker based in South San Francisco with a large presence in Thousand Oaks, announced April 4 that its cell therapy manufacturing facility in Thousand Oaks was purchased by Fujifilm Corp. for $100 million.
The deal was first announced in January and is part of a long-term strategic supply agreement between Atara and Fujifilm. The Fujifilm subsidiary Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies will be contracted to provide Atara with manufacturing and development for its clinical and commercial-stage allogenic cell therapies. Fujifilm Diosynth will also use the 90,000-square-foot Thousand Oaks facility to manufacture “a broader portfolio of cell therapies,” according to an Atara news release.
Atara’s technical operations team will manage the manufacturing partnership, quality assurance, and supply chain and logistics issues. FujiFilm also plans to hire around 140 people from Atara’s Thousand Oaks staff, according to a FujiFilm news release.
Atara said it plans to use the $100 million in cash, along with savings from operating expenses related to the deal, to fund its operations into late 2023. By then Atara plans to have finished its Phase 2 study of ATA188, a T-cell therapy designed to treat multiple sclerosis.
