Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGT Catapult) has launched a consortium to advance manufacturing of personalized cell therapies.
The consortium, of which UK-based advanced therapy developer Achilles Therapeutics is project coordinator, has been awarded $4.2 million by Horizon Europe to advance a bioprocessing manufacturing platform for personalized therapies.
According to CGT, the existing manufacturing platforms on the market are hindered in their ability to deliver sufficient real-time dating during production, which limits overall scalability and decision making.
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The company said its project entitled “Smart ManufactuRing for Autologous Cell Therapies enabled by innovative biomonitoring technologies and advanced process control” (SMARTER), will aim to develop a proof-of-concept and first-in-class production platform that will be capable of establishing key biomarkers in real-time and regulating aspects of the process when needed to enable drug production at a more consistent quality.
“At the heart of our vision for a thriving cell and gene therapy sector is our work to make the manufacture of ATMPs safer, more efficient and more consistent,” Matthew Durdy, CEO of the CGT Catapult said.
“This project will be a hugely important step forward in this area, helping to improve scalability and reduce costs. We look forward to seeing how we can capture the lessons from this project and ensure that, in the long term, developers, clinicians and patients can benefit.”
CGT Catapult itself will receive $1.2 million of the $4.2 million funding to enable delivery of this project through the Horizon Europe guarantee scheme. The investment will fund technology, including Raman soft sensors and chemometric models for online process biomarker monitoring.
Achilles will be responsible for developing the tumor neoantigen mechanistic models and they will then be transferred into CGT Catapult.
While Achilles will supply all biological material and cell models used during the project, other members of the consortium will have different responsibilities. The Fundacion para la Investigacion del Hospital Universitario la Fe de la Comunidad Valenciana will find process parameters and biomarker monitoring targets and Leibniz University Hannover will develop 2D fluorescence spectroscopy sensors.
The CGT Catapult will then use its experience in Process Analytical Technologies (PAT), robotics and automation to bioprocessing systems to bring the technology together in order to demonstrate a proof-of-concept device.
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