Tony Holohan, the State’s former chief medical officer, has joined the board of Irish cell therapy company aCGT Vector.
aCGT Vector is developing a network of cell therapy deployment pods within leading cancer hospitals. St James’s Hospital in Dublin is its first operational facility.
The self-contained units can be dropped in, or driven on, to a hospital campus. Each pod allows on-site pharma-grade CAR-T therapy processing in or close to hospitals. The pods can be scaled to meet the number of patients to be treated at a given site.
The company said the pods will ensure patients benefit from shorter waiting times and potentially better treatment outcomes, allowing cell therapy companies the option to more effectively and efficiently produce cell therapies in a way that streamlines both clinical trials and commercial deployment of approved therapies.
CAR-T cell therapy is where a cancer patients own white blood cells are removed, genetically modified and returned to the patient where the CAR-T cells identify and attack cancer cells in the body.
Since 2020, approximately 50 Irish patients have received CAR-T therapy. The first 30 patients had to travel abroad to receive the treatment with the remaining 20 patients treated at St James’s Hospital.
It can take up to six weeks before a patient’s transformed cells are available for infusion into the patient, a process aCGT Vector is looking to shorten significantly with its on-site pods.
The company, founded by Gary McAuslan and industry veteran Ivan Coulter in 2020, is part of a consortium, Healed, which is looking to develop next-generation cell therapies for cancer. The consortium received €10.5 million in grant support from the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund.
Company chief executive Mr McAuslan said: “Tony is one of the outstanding and most respected public health professionals in Europe and we are delighted that he will head up our strategic advisory board.”
Dr Holohan said aCGT Vector had the potential to transform patient access to cutting-edge innovations in cell therapy in the fight against cancer and other rare diseases.
The company has also announced that Takeda cell therapy expert Dr Aine Adams is joining the business as head of cell therapy (manufacturing, science and technology).
