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Point-of-care and decentralised cell manufacturing

Making CAR-T cells at or near the hospital instead of shipping cells to a central factory and back.

Academic centres (Sheba, Hospital Clínic Barcelona's ARI-0001, several Chinese and Indian programmes) and companies (Cellares 'Smart Factories', Orgenesis, Galapagos' decentralised model) manufacture cell therapies close to the patient, cutting vein-to-vein time to about a week and cost substantially. Regulators are working out how to license many small sites against one product specification.

Generic schematic · not to scale · placeholder for the cell therapy front
T cell + CAR transgene · CAR binds antigen (no MHC needed) · Tumour cell

How it works

Standardised closed platforms plus centralised quality oversight and digital batch records allow the same process to run at many sites.

Strengths
  • Days rather than weeks to product
  • Lower cost
  • Access for hospitals far from central plants
Limitations
  • Regulatory model immature outside a few jurisdictions
  • Site-to-site comparability
  • Vector supply still centralised

Key papers

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Latest papers

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Latest papers · live from Europe PMC
Open in Europe PMC

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Connected

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