Description: A comprehensive national research, development and testing platform that will benefit patients, healthcare providers, and industry by ensuring Canadian cell therapy innovations are safely, cost effectively and efficiently manufactured.
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Innovation in both process and product research, development and testing are required to improve standards, drive efficiency, and ensure quality and safety of cell therapy products. ExCELLirate Canada is a new nationally coordinated research platform for next generation cancer cell therapies that seeks to:
Adoptive cell transfer involves taking a patient’s immune cells from their blood and modifying them in a lab so they can target cancer cells more effectively — enhancing the patient’s immune system to fight their cancer. Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has successfully treated children and adult patients with forms of leukemia and lymphoma and there is growing evidence that engineered immune cells have the potential to be broadly applicable across more types of cancer. Through ExCELLirate Can
In 2019, a 22-year old man with acute lymphoblastic leukemia was in a Canadian hospital awaiting his CAR T-cells that were being manufactured in the USA. His medical team worked diligently to keep him alive, but it was not easy. His leukemic cells were multiplying rapidly resulting in life-threatening infections and blood clots in his lungs. Many patients in his situation do not survive the month required to produce CAR T- cells using the current system.