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Pitt, UPMC announce $200 million for new immunotherapy center

PITTSBURGH — A new $200 million immunization center in Bloomfield will anchor an eight-story complex dedicated to medical innovation, officials from UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh announced Tuesday.

The century-old building at the corner of Baum Boulevard and Morewood Avenue will house the UPMC Immune Transplant and Therapy Center, a space for labs, offices and startup companies.

“The ITTC represents an endeavor that is at the heart of UPMC’s mission — to develop and deliver life-changing medicine,” said UPMC President and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Romoff in a statement. “By investing in extraordinary people and groundbreaking research today, we will define tomorrow’s health care, right here in Pittsburgh.”

The goal of the center is to transform medical research into practical use at a faster pace. At its inception, the center will focus on transplantation, cancer, and aging and chronic diseases.

Researchers at the center are expected to take new therapies to market more quickly, speeding the spread of medical advances around the world and creating the revenue to fund more breakthroughs.

"That opportunity of innovation spurring development that will mean jobs for everyone," said Mayor Bill Peduto said at a news conference. "Not just the PhDs, but the GEDs as well."

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The building at 5000 Baum was built by Ford Motor Co. in 1915. The 200,000-square-foot facility began as an assembly plant and showroom, primarily for the revolutionary Model T automobile.

"It'll be state of the art inside and yet it will have all the character on the outside and I just think that's a unique Pittsburgh thing," Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher told Channel 11.

Renovation of the building is expected to take two years.

"We want to create an environment where those ideas get nurtured and turned into new products and that happens right here and the companies want to stay here because this is the environment where that's most likely," Gallagher said.