Advanced treatments like gene and cell therapies are set to transform current care pathways. These revolutionary treatments can repair, replace, regenerate and re-engineer genes, cells and tissues to restore normal function. Such solutions will potentially offer durable and curative outcomes for patients where unmet medical needs currently exist.
The Challenge
Our healthcare services are not yet configured to adopt and deploy such therapies at a large scale. Substantial changes are required across acute care pathways to ensure patient access to these transformative therapies within NHS Wales.
The sector, and much of the technology, is still at an early research and development stage but continues to rapidly expand.
A key challenge with Advanced Therapies is the cost of treatment. This will continue to remain high until adoption and usage increases, which will reduce unit prices.
We recognise that bridging the gap between research and treatment will enable cutting-edge developments to transition into transformative and affordable therapies.
The Opportunity
Despite being in the early stages of our journey, Wales is already making significant progress due to our academic excellence, commitment from Welsh Government and developing infrastructure.
Life Sciences Hub Wales supported a successful funding bid by the Welsh Blood Service and West Midlands Blood Service to establish the West Midlands and Wales Advanced Therapy Treatment Centre (WMATTIC) to facilitate the delivery of advanced therapy treatments for patients.
A number of Lymphoma patients in Cardiff recently received chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy. This treatment required a multi-national provider supply chain, but the potential exists to create a Welsh research and industry cluster that will allow such treatment to be developed here in Wales.
Life Sciences Hub Wales is working closely with external stakeholders to achieve the actions stated in the ‘Advanced Therapies Statement of Intent’ set by Welsh Government.
As a key delivery partner for the Advanced Therapies Wales (Adv TX) programme, Life Sciences Hub Wales is committed to developing a variety of special interest groups and consortiums that will help provide a supply chain for Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products across Wales and the West Midlands.
How can I get involved?
We want to accelerate Wales’ Advanced Therapies innovation pipeline by developing more relationships with likeminded partners offering clinical and supply chain solutions.
Life Sciences Hub Wales can plug you into the right the networks across industry, academia, and health and social care to help shape the future of Advanced Therapies in Wales. If you are interested in joining our special interest group, then please register your interest by emailing hello@lshubwales.com.
If you want to learn more about Advanced Therapies innovation in Wales, in summer 2020 we held a launch event for Advanced Therapies in Wales. Here, leading stakeholders answered some of your most important questions. Our Advanced Therapies FAQ document summarises the event, exploring how industry and health and social care can help to translate these developments into transformative therapies for patients across Wales.