Cell Therapy Catapult, King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust Collaborate to Improve Viral Vector Industrialisation Process
The Cell Therapy Catapult has signed an agreement with King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust that will allow for critical work to be carried out to develop platform processes to greatly improve the commercial scale production of viral vector technologies available to industry in the UK.
Viral vectors are tools commonly used by molecular biologists to deliver genetic material into cells and have shown great promise in cancer immunotherapy and for the correction of genetic defects. The Cell Therapy Catapult is responding to concerns that scale-up of the manufacturing processes used for some viral vectors is a barrier to their use in larger scale and late-phase clinical trials and in commercial supply. King’s College London is a world renowned supplier of viral vectors and the leading academic centre within the EU.
The project involves international expert,Professor Farzin Farzaneh and his team at King’s College London who have manufactured numerous viral vectors for early Phase clinical trials, both for academic partners and international industrial clients. The NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’, led by Professor Graham Lord, is developing a number of advanced cell and gene therapies that use viral vectors in their construction.
Keith Thompson, Chief Executive of the Cell Therapy Catapult, said: “This collaboration with King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is intended to deal with immediate capacity constraints, to help unlock a rich pipeline of new therapies, and to serve as a building block for the commercialisation of gene modified cell therapies that rely on viral vectors. Our first aim is to double the output of Gammaretrovirus and increase the number of clinical trials that can be carried out. This important work to develop the industrialisation process will also be compatible with the Cell Therapy Catapult manufacturing centre due to open in 2017.”
Farzin Farzaneh, Professor of Molecular Medicine at King’s College London, said: “My team and I are delighted to be involved in this project with the Cell Therapy Catapult which will greatly assist in the development of gene therapy for a range of clinical applications.”
Graham Lord, Director of the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and Professor of Medicine & Honorary Consultant in Nephrology, Transplantation and Internal Medicine, King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, said: “Viral vectors represent an exciting area of science which will lead to new treatments for NHS patients and places King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals at the forefront of this technology.”
The project will begin later this year