2020 Vision – CARAT in more detail

The CARAT project consortium comprises a multi-national team of renowned European key scientists for genetic and cellular engineering technologies with industrial leaders for cell manufacturing tools.

TrakCel will provide a pivotal role developing and delivering a technology platform which will facilitate the adoption of CAR T-cell therapies ensuring process standardisation at all parts of the therapeutic supply chain and provide close monitoring and control when starting materials and final therapeutic products are shipped. TrakCel will also simplify the way in which the manufacture processes of these products are documented.

Joining TrakCel in this project, will be:

·        Miltenyi Biotec GmbH

·        Ospedale San Raffaele

·        Paul-Ehrlich-Institut

·        Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicale

·        University College London

·        Universitaetsklinikum Freiburg

·        European Research and Project Office GmbH

Equipped with a total budget of €6 million, we aim to integrate innovative cell manufacturing tools and enabling technologies into a comprehensive and unique platform to facilitate the safe, automated, and cost-efficient manufacture of CAR T-cells; a revolutionary and highly effective treatment option to cure cancer.

Specifically, CARAT will:

Develop a comprehensive toolbox explicitly tailored for automated, easy-to-handle and cost-efficient manufacture of CAR T cells including novel tracking tools;

Establish complementary enabling technologies to obtain more effective and safer cellular products, improved gene delivery, better CARs design and innovative monitoring;

Demonstrate proof-of-concept and regulatory compliance of the CARAT platform.

CARAT will deliver proof-of-principle for an innovative integrated solution to generate genetically modified ATMPs (advanced therapeutic medicinal products) that are specifically tailored towards cancer killing and thus serve patients with so far incurable solid tumours and hematologic malignancies.

Read more about the project here: http://carat-horizon2020.eu/carat-network/

To read more about Cellular Orchestration Solutions (COS) for CAR T and the advanced therapy sector visit our Solutions Pages or review our Customer Stories to read about some of the challenges our deployed COS have helped to resolve for CAR T developers.