UKC Ljubljana to start cell production to treat cancer
Ljubljana, 15 July - The UKC Ljubljana medical centre is in the final stages of obtaining the necessary paperwork to start producing CAR-T cells for cell therapy. This is a form of immunotherapy that uses specially altered T cells, which are a part of the patient's immune system, to fight cancer.
Ljubljana
The main building of UKC Ljubljana medical centre, built in 1975, will be renovated.
Photo: Nebojša Tejić/STA
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The hospital's Department of Clinical Haematology currently has three Prodigy automated devices for the production of CAR-T cells, two of which are used by the Institute of Microbiology and Immunology at the Faculty of Medicine in Ljubljana.
The third will be used as soon as the hospital obtains the final regulatory approvals and sets up the necessary sterile rooms, which is expected to happen within a year. Slovenia will then have two cell production sites.
The staff who will operate the devices has been undergoing additional training abroad, most notably they are "gathering knowledge from professor Halvard Bönig at his centre for cellular therapy in Frankfurt," UKC told the STA.
Bönig is in charge of CAR-T cell production at the Institute for Transfusion Medicine and Immunotherapy in Frankfurt, which is the fifth largest institute of its kind and is responsible for 20 million people. He is a regular guest lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine in Ljubljana, as well as UKC's consultant on CAR-T cells.