Clinical Cell and Vaccine Production Facility (CVPF)

Introduction to CVPF

Here at Penn, the Clinical Cell and Vaccine Production Facility (CVPF), a cellular manufacturing facility accredited by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT) and a CCI Department of Pathology/Lab Medicine shared resource, manufactures such bio-therapeutics for safety and initial efficacy testing in first-in-human, pilot, and Phase I clinical trials. Enabling this bench-to-bed translation is the mission of the CVPF.

CVPF Mission

The overall mission of the Clinical Cell and Vaccine Production Facility is to help translate insights into novel cellular therapies. Other important missions include:

• To activate and/or gene transduce cells for allogeneic or autologous cell-based cancer therapies.
• To answer questions relative to the effectiveness of cell and gene therapy by analysis of patient samples.
• To develop new and improved methods of ex vivo cell culture and gene transduction.
• To maintain a knowledge of regulatory requirements and guidelines and provide expertise to Penn investigators and collaborators.
• To increase the impact of potential novel cellular therapies by facilitating wide application of the techniques developed

The CVPF provides focused scientific, technical and regulatory support for investigator initiated investigational new drug applications (INDs) in cell and gene therapy. The CVPF performs cell processing on a range of different cell types to include bone marrow derived CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes, dendritic cells, and marrow stromal cells (mesenchymal stem cells). In each of these cases, cells are expanded ex vivo with or without genetic modification to the cells before being introduced back into the patient, either alone or in combination with other therapies such as vaccines.

In scenarios in which it is not possible to use a patient’s own cells, cells from a matched donor are used to manufacture the cell therapy product. Current open trials are in the area of hematologic malignancies (multiple myeloma, leukemia, and lymphoma), breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and HIV. In addition, although the CVPF is not currently supporting trials of such therapies, the Facility is able to process non-marrow derived cells such as neural stem cells, islet cells, and myoblasts.

The CVPF has two cellular manufacturing suites: one in the Ravdin Pavilion in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) and a second in the Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics (CACT) in the South Pavilion Expansion of the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine.

Learn More About Cellular Therapy >>>

How you can help:

To direct a donation to the CVPF, go to: 
https://giving.apps.upenn.edu/giving/jsp/fast.do?program=MED&fund=603872 

For further questions, contact: 
Tricia Bruning 
Gifts Officer, Abramson Cancer Center 
(215) 898-0578 
tbruning@ben.dev.upenn.edu