NEW YORK – Cambridge University Hospitals on Tuesday announced that it has received £1.5 million ($1.9 million) in funding, which it will put toward advancing cell therapy research and improving patients' access to treatment in Cambridge.
The grant, from Britain's National Institute for Health and Care Research, will go toward establishing what Cambridge researchers are calling an Advanced Therapy Hub.
As of now, Cambridge researchers say that patients in England who need advanced treatments such as autologous CAR T-cell therapies usually have to travel to specialized hospitals. With the new hub, patients closer to Cambridge, even in the remote coastal areas in the East of England, will be able to access these therapies closer to home.
The funding will allow Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) to acquire specialized equipment needed for CAR T-cell therapy and stem cell therapy, including apheresis machines, which are used to collect immune cells from patients. The hub will include one such machine dedicated to research, which will allow CUH to conduct additional clinical trials.
The hub will also acquire the equipment used to produce, purify, quality-control, and supply the materials used to produce these therapies, as well as advanced imaging technologies used to precisely deliver them. These will include ultrasound equipment and intra-operative MRI equipment.
"Over the last few years in Cambridge, we have successfully treated many patients from across the East of England with cell and gene therapies that have been made elsewhere," Ben Uttenthal, a consultant hematologist at CUH, said in a statement. "This equipment will take us to the next level, allowing us to make our own completely new advanced therapies in partnership with the university and then test them in world-first clinical trials."