The New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII), an NJIT Corporation, has announced that its Cell and Gene Therapy Development Center has launched a training program to upgrade the knowledge and skills of biopharmaceutical professionals in the processing of new, breakthrough classes of biologic therapies.

The workforce training program is in response to increasing demands from the biopharmaceutical industry for engineers and scientists to be trained in manufacturing and processing of the newest biologic and immunotherapies such as advanced CAR-T cancer therapy. The program will combine lectures and hands-on training to introduce the newest approaches and technologies applied to the development and production of these innovative therapies.

NJII President and CEO, Dr. Donald H. Sebastian said, “The pharmaceutical industry faces formidable challenges as it adapts to the new culture of biotechnology,” said Donald Sebastian, president and chief executive officer, NJII. “This training initiative demonstrates NJII’s commitment to advance cell and gene therapy manufacturing and processing innovation.”

Haro Hartounian, NJII’s executive director, biotechnology and pharmaceutical innovation said, “The pace of development in cell and gene therapy is unprecedented in the biopharmaceutical industry. It is imperative that engineers and scientists are proficient not only in in the latest processing techniques, but that they also acquire a basic understanding of the underlying protocols. Our instructional team composed of industry and university faculty experts is ideally structured to meet the needs of the industry for training of their workforce in the manufacturing and processing of these novel biopharmaceuticals.”