Aptus Clinical are one of twelve partners receiving government funding to ensure that more patients benefit from a new generation of disease-fighting medicines for cancer and non-cancer illnesses.
Nearly £7 million has been awarded to the Innovate Manchester Advanced Therapy Centre Hub (iMATCH) by Innovate UK from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund Competition. Manchester is one of only three centres that will be established to support the national strategy to scale-up the development of advanced therapies for a range of debilitating conditions within the NHS.
Aptus will provide clinical operations support to the iMATCH consortium and develop innovative solutions for clinical data capture and presentation, incorporating novel areas such as sample tracking and predictive modelling.
Alongside Aptus, the iMATCH consortium consists of The Christie, The University of Manchester, the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, AgenTus Therapeutics, AstraZeneca (iDecide Programme), Asymptote (part of GE Healthcare), Chaucer Life Sciences, Cellular Therapeutics, The Christie Pathology Partnership, Datatrial and Formedix.
Advanced therapies use patients’ own cells to treat disease, and currently clinical trials for these advanced therapies are highly complex and logistically very challenging and expensive to run.
However, during the three-year project, the iMATCH consortium will invest in systems, processes and integration infrastructure to help make the process of running these trials as efficient as possible, enabling larger clinical trials to be available to more patients.
The consortium aims to recruit 260 patients to clinical trials in advanced therapies. By 2021, the project end date, five times more patients than currently, should be treated with this type of personalised medicine each year in Manchester.
Steve McConchie, CEO of Aptus Clinical said: "We’re delighted to have received this funding, and to also get the chance to work with some fantastic local partners. We’re confident that together we can build a world leading centre of excellence delivering cell and gene therapy studies and so help develop life changing therapies for patients in Manchester and beyond.