Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, today announced the launch of its new Cell Therapy Collaboration Center Program in Singapore to accelerate cell therapy development across the Asia Pacific region. The center, based in Singapore, will serve as the Asia Pacific hub to provide cell and gene therapy (CGT) developers with tailored support on their path to clinical manufacturing and commercial success.

"Through our Cell Therapy Collaboration Program, we are able to offer our collaborators deep scientific engagement, instrument, and workflow support to help them optimize their manufacturing process while refining our cell therapy solutions to meet real-world challenges," said Betty Woo, vice president and general manager of cell and gene therapy, Thermo Fisher.

In Southeast Asia, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) cause an estimated nine million¹ deaths annually along with the Asia Pacific region being home to almost half the world's cancer cases, which is expected to increase by 35% by 2030². Despite significant scientific breakthroughs and clinical milestone achievements, the cell and gene therapy industry continues to face persistent challenges in manufacturing scalability, logistic constraints, regulatory barriers and talent shortages which hinder the progress of potentially life-saving therapies.

To address these challenges, Thermo Fisher Scientific has developed a portfolio of integrated solutions and services to support cell and gene therapy developers from clinical research to commercial manufacturing. Researchers and developers collaborating with Thermo Fisher Scientific in this program can expect the following benefits:

• Access to state-of-the-art Thermo Fisher technologies, including Cell Therapy Systems (CTS) products such as CTS DynaCellect Magnetic Separation System, CTS Xenon Electroporation System and CTS Rotea Counterflow Centrifugation System
• Protocol and process optimization from Thermo Fisher technical product experts
• Product-specific regulatory support to facilitate and expedite clinical translation
• Ongoing support, ranging from product and process scale-up to supply chain readiness and de-risking, as cell therapy programs advance to commercialization

"Being a part of Thermo Fisher's collaboration program has helped us to evaluate the potential of utilizing automated, closed cell therapy solutions to develop a novel process of manufacturing cell therapies on the OmniCAR platform using non-viral methods," said Rebecca Lim, senior vice president of scientific affairs, Prescient Technologies

From process development to technology transfer and scalability, this collaboration program will enable cell therapy innovators to accelerate the accessibility of these potentially curative therapies to patients.

The program officially kicked off in October last year at the 2022 Cell & Gene Therapy Expert Forum Event with over 50 leading developers and thought leaders across the Asia Pacific region.

"Across the cell and gene therapy sector, it is clear that no one company or entity can operate in isolation. Collaborations and partnerships across the ecosystem are vital to overcome key obstacles and accelerate speed-to-market of next-generation therapies. Efforts such as Thermo Fisher Scientific's Collaboration Center Program can be useful enablers to accelerate development in Asia," said A/Prof Danny Soon, chief executive officer, Consortium for Clinical Research and Innovation, Singapore.