TrakCel, software developer for gene therapy supply chain tracking and orchestration, has announced it will be organisation that is responsible for tracking and documentation of cell and gene therapy products for the Northern Alliance Advanced Therapies Treatment Centre.
Serialisation
The Northern Alliance is a partnership of advanced therapies companies, NHS organisations and academic groups in the North of England and Scotland. Comprising 20 organisations, the partnership will be led by Newcastle upon Tyne NHS Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service. It has been tasked with facilitating the development, commercialisation and adoption of cell, gene and tissue engineered therapies in the UK.
Innovate UK has provided a three-year grant award to the alliance as part of an Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. This totals £7 million with an anticipated additional £2 million in contributions from commercial partners.
“TrakCel now provides tracking and orchestration to numerous global cell and gene therapy companies across the industry. It is now established across the global industry that all major cell therapy projects require a traceability and management solution for operating their clinical development and furthering their commercialisation strategies,” explained Ravi Nalliah, CEO, TrakCel. “As a result, the TrakCel platform will be critical to the success of the development of therapies by the Northern Alliance that could help countless patients across the UK and globally. This is a responsibility that we take incredibly seriously.”
Over the next year, it is highly anticipated that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) will approve the first cell therapy CAR-T product. Therefore, the NHS will need a fully integrated network to be able to safely and efficiently deliver these therapies. Solutions developed by the Northern Alliance will increase the capacity of the NHS to deliver these medicines by developing systems and processes within the trusts and hospitals capable of delivering advanced therapies to patients. The resultant systems could potentially be rolled out across the UK and globally.
TrakCel will provide the Northern Alliance with a digital backbone for tracking and documenting the movement of samples throughout the collection, logistics and manufacturing process. This comprehensive log of all activities will be vital for managing traceability and the chain of custody across the multiple organisations and teams involved in the partnership. TrakCel will also create a digital infrastructure across each hospital and the wider partnership to co-ordinate and manage the cell and gene therapy products.