Recipient organisationThe Christie NHS Foundation TrustSource-published name: The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
Funding£2.1M
PeriodDec 2018 — Mar 2022
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
A national network of hospitals, blood services, and biotech companies is standardising how patient cells are collected, processed, and stored for use as living drugs. These treatments—called Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs)—reprogram a patient’s own cells to fight cancer or other diseases, but the process is currently complex, expensive, and available to only a small number of patients. The problem is that each hospital and manufacturer currently handles the starting material—tissue and cell samples—in a different way, creating inefficiencies and bottlenecks that limit how many people can be treated. This project, called SAMPLE, brings together experts from Scotland, England, and Wales, including NHS Blood and Transplant, major hospitals, and four specialist businesses, to agree on a single, streamlined approach. If successful, the work will make the manufacturing pipeline faster and more reliable, allowing more children and adults to receive these life-changing therapies. The UK already leads in this field; this investment aims to turn that leadership into a practical, scalable system that attracts further investment and makes advanced therapies a routine option rather than a rare exception.
View original technical description
"**Advance Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs)** **are a new generation of treatments which use patients' cells as 'drugs' to treat a variety of diseases.** Although encouraging results have been reported, this technology is complex, expensive and currently only available to small numbers of patients. In **2018** the **UK** have formed **a network of three Advanced Therapy Treatment Centres (ATTCs)** supported by the **Cell & Gene Therapy Catapult**. The ATTC network have partners made up of: ATMP developers & manufacturers, National Blood Services, Hospitals, Universities, logistics providers, raw materials suppliers & technology providers. This project is being led by the **iMATCH ATTC** (innovate Manchester Advanced Therapy Centre Hub) but involves collaboration with the other 2 ATTCs Midlands & Wales ATTC and Northern Alliance ATTC and introduces a new partner (Guy's & St Thomas's Hospital, London) to expand activities outside the ATTCs. This **Project** ""**SAMPLE**"" will harnesses a group of collaborators who share a vision of working more efficiently together so we can develop a standardised approach to the collection of tissue & cell based starting materials essential to the manufacture of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products. Ultimately, making improvements enabling more life changing treatments to be provided to children and adults with cancer and non-cancer diseases. This project unites experts from Scotland, England & Wales: NHS Blood & Transplant, SNBTS, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and 4 businesses with specific expertise in different aspects of delivering Advanced Therapies. The 4 commercial partners are; Asymptote, Autolus, Cellular Therapeutics & TrakCel as well as 3 non-funded participation from global medicine manufacturers and technology providers: Novartis, Gilead & Terumo BCT. We are going to focus on: coordinating patient cell collection, processing and storage of those cells and enabling efficient systems to collect **SAMPLES** from the patient or donor and so streamlining the manufacture and enabling an increase in the number of patients being treated. The UK is a world leader in these types of treatments and this investment by Innovate UK will build on these innovative therapies and technologies thereby improving the lives of the UK population but also making the UK a destination for both investment and also other non-UK developed therapies in both trials and ultimately standard therapies."
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