Gothenburg to host the 2024 ISCT Europe meeting
“We are honoured to be hosting the ISCT meeting in Gothenburg. It is one more piece to the puzzle of the long-term plan of positioning Sweden and the Nordics as an internationally recognised hub for research, development, manufacturing and commercialization of cell therapy and regenerative medicine products,” says Iris Öhrn, investment advisor for life science at Business Region Göteborg.
“Apart from the huge benefits to patients, we are convinced of the health economics advantages and the impact it will have on job creation and talent attraction. We look forward to more international collaborations and more public-private partnerships,” she adds.
Private and public stakeholders working together
The work to bring the conference to Gothenburg has been a collaborative effort, involving, among others, AstraZeneca, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, ATMP Sweden, Göteborg & Co and Business Region Göteborg.
“We are looking forward to contributing to the ISCT regional event to be hosted in Gothenburg in 2024. Over the decades, this city has really been the crucible for some of the most exciting advances in next generation therapeutics, including cell and gene therapy,” says Michael Delahaye, Director Cell Therapy Bioprocessing at AstraZeneca.
“We hope this will be a fantastic platform for bringing together people and partners with diverse expertise and passion for innovation in cell therapy to share learnings and build connections,” he adds.
Heather Main, project manager for ATMP Sweden, also looks forward to working with the ISCT team to build a great regional meeting in Gothenburg in September 2024.
“Events like the ones organised by ISCT are essential for enabling interactions with international stakeholders that complement our own national efforts. We need to ensure the long-term sustainability of all these initiatives if we are going to really catalyse this new field,” she says.
Collaboration can help deliver new therapeutic options to patients
The announcement of the 2024 meeting follows the recent announcement from the Swedish government, of a new national centre for the commercialisation, competence development and production of advanced therapies – CCRM Nordics - to be located at GoCo Health innovation City in Gothenburg. In total, SEK 160 million will be invested in the new centre over the next two years, with an industrial consortium and Vinnova, Sweden’s innovation agency, contributing half each.
Advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), such as cell and gene therapies, enable more efficient healthcare, as well as new and more accurate treatments that in the future can be used against major public diseases such as cancer and diabetes. They also constitute a large future market for the Swedish life science industry. The new bio-manufacturing innovation centre will be led by an industrial consortium, consisting of AstraZeneca, CombiGene, Cytiva Sweden, Testa Center, Getinge, GoCo Development, Takara Bio Europe, TATAA Biocenter and Verigraft.
“While product development, affordable manufacture, market approval and reimbursement are steep hills to climb, bringing together the strengths of organisations like AstraZeneca, CCRM Nordics, ATMP Sweden and ISCT is going to help deliver new therapeutic options to patients in Sweden and worldwide,” says Jim Lund, project manager for ATMP 2030, who has been working on bringing all relevant stakeholders in Sweden to contribute to the vision to make Sweden a leader in advanced therapies by 2030.
Learn more about Gothenburg's dynamic life science ecosystem
Learn more about the new CCRM Nordics centre in Gothenburg
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