Public cell-therapy foundries at cancer centres for academics and start-ups
Building a cell-therapy factory costs tens of millions, so most good academic ideas never reach patients. Shared public facilities would give them a route to the clinic.
The UK Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, Canada's CCRM and several US academic GMP facilities show that shared, publicly funded manufacturing can carry academic products through early trials. The proposal is a national network of foundries co-located with cancer centres, each with standardised closed automated platforms, a shared quality system, and transparent booking and pricing, funded to provide first-in-human manufacturing at marginal cost for academic and start-up programmes, with a fast route for successful products into the hospital-made network or industry.
- Manufacturing cost and time for living and radioactive medicines · Cell therapies take weeks to make for one patient and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Isotopes run short.
- The valley of death between lab and product · Most academic discoveries die before anyone tests them in people because nobody funds the middle step.
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not linked directly; found by shared links- IdeaAn open interoperability standard for closed automated cell-processing machines
Shares TIL therapy, Manufacturing cost and time for living and radioactive medicines, CAR-T cell therapy.
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Shares TIL therapy, Manufacturing cost and time for living and radioactive medicines, CAR-T cell therapy.
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- IdeaHospital-exemption cell therapies at scale, backed by a shared registry
Shares TIL therapy, TCR-T cell therapy, The valley of death between lab and product, Manufacturing cost and time for living and radioactive medicines.
- IdeaA neutral slot exchange so unused CAR-T manufacturing slots go to the next patient
Shares Manufacturing cost and time for living and radioactive medicines, CAR-T cell therapy.
- IdeaPublic reference standards and potency assays for CAR-T so every lab measures alike
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- IdeaTwo-day CAR-T manufacture paired with rapid release tests that regulators accept
Shares Manufacturing cost and time for living and radioactive medicines, CAR-T cell therapy.
- IdeaUse patient organoids to check a cell therapy will work before infusing it
Shares TIL therapy, Manufacturing cost and time for living and radioactive medicines, CAR-T cell therapy.