Mayo Clinic, GE Ventures Team Up To Accelerate Cell And Gene Cancer Therapies
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
State-of-the-art software and manufacturing platform will help further new therapies.
The Mayo Clinic has announced a partnership with GE Ventures to launch a new company, Vitruvian Networks, an independent platform company committed to accelerating cell and gene therapies through new, state-of-the-art, cloud-ready software systems and manufacturing systems. According to the release, Vitruvian Networks will be dedicated to helping combat cancer and other diseases by offering systems that will expedite patient access to personalized therapies.
Vitruvian’s platform will serve as a network coordinator for therapeutic companies, helping them bring the Internet of Things (IoT) to cell and gene therapies. The goal is to provide effective and safe treatment for cancer and other diseases.
IoT is gaining traction as the healthcare industry has been increasing efforts to improve quality and the continuum of care. MarketResearch.com estimated in 2015 the healthcare IoT market segment would hit $117 billion by 2020.
“Merging GE’s operational excellence with emerging cell and gene therapies will enable faster, more effective, and safer treatments for patients,” said Sue Siegel, CEO, GE Ventures. “Mayo Clinic is a key leader in patient treatment delivery in cancer care and regenerative medicine, so we are honored to have incubated this solution in joint partnership.”
Initially, Vitruvian Networks will focus on the production of autologous cell therapies that target blood cancers, as well as developing the supporting standards, infrastructure and ecosystem necessary to protect patients and expedite discovery, delivery, and regulation in the field.
“Autologous therapies in the area of regenerative and personalized medicine have shown great promise in treating life-threatening diseases,” said Andre Terzic, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine. “We are excited that Vitruvian Networks will further drive standardization of the industry, increase scalability and bring forward the realization of critical therapeutic potential to address the unmet needs of patients around the world.”
Mayo Clinic is providing data related to biomarkers, cell therapy processes, and clinical outcomes, which Vitruvian Networks will use to further the development of personalized therapies. Tools from GE Healthcare’s cell therapy business will also be leveraged to further treatment protocols.
“The highly customized nature of cell and gene therapies shows great promise for patient care, but it also introduces logistical challenges that make mass manufacturing uniquely complex,” says Kieran Murphy, president and CEO, GE Healthcare Life Sciences.