BridGE@CCRM By Shawn Lawrence
ONTARIO
The BridGE@CCRM:
Where cell and gene therapies go mainstream On January 13, 2016, the Government of Canada and GE Healthcare announced that they were each investing $20 million into the creation of a new Centre for Advanced Therapeutic Cell Technologies. Located in the heart of downtown Toronto in the MaRS West Tower, the new facility, dubbed BridGE@CCRM, is scheduled to be up and running by the late fall and expectations are that it will usher in a new era of industrialization in the regenerative medicine field.
The Canadian Press Images/Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine/Salvatore Sacco
As Michael May, president and CEO of the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM), explains it will be a unique venue where solutions like scalable manufacturing processes for cell therapies are developed to help regenerative medicine companies, both big and small. “We’re taking a unique approach to developing and testing new manufacturing and workflow solutions,” says May, adding that the way it has been done in the past, companies take a bright idea, create a prototype and throw it over the fence and see what customers think. “Here companies like GE and others will work handin-hand with the customers and end-users on the ground in creating the prototypes, and thus enable scalable, commercialized manufacturing of such therapies.”
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Biotechnology Focus
June/July 2016
“We have built a strong industry consortium of nearly 50 companies to help drive a collaborative approach to realizing the potential of regenerative medicine, of which GE Healthcare plays a leading role” — Michael May Moreover, he says with GE as a partner, there is huge potential to capitalize on existing expertise and credibility in the industrialization space. “I think the wonderful thing about this collaboration is that GE is one of the most significant infrastructure companies in the world. It already enables industrialization in so many other major industries. GE
Healthcare’s Life Science business already provides tools and technologies to people throughout the various parts of the market including basic research all the way through to clinical production and manufacturing,” he says. On the other side of the table, Phil Vanek, general manager of cell therapy technologies at GE Healthcare’s Life Sciences busi-
