TC BioPharm Completes Clinical Manufacturing Facility

With additional seed funds of £250k TC BioPharm (TCB) has been able to complete construction of its new clinical manufacturing facility at Maxim Park, Glasgow, in a record time of 12 weeks and 2 days, bringing it one step closer to treating cancer patients during 2015.

Initially backed by MEDINET and Scottish investors, the additional funding from the Scottish Investment Bank enabled TCB to build its cleanroom facilities and offices alongside the quality control suites and development laboratories Up to  3,500 sq ft (325m2) of the total 5,000 sq ft (465m2) footfall will support manufacture of clinical grade product.

 TCB is developing a technology to use a patient’s own immune cells to target cancer and plans to treat its first cohort of patients during 2015, working alongside established cancer clinics in Glasgow, Southampton and Birmingham.

Its next step is to get an IMP (Investigational Medicinal Product) licence from the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) before clinical product can be made. Stating the importance of this licence Angela Scott, TC BioPharm’s operations director commented: “The team at TC BioPharm has done an amazing job building and commissioning our GMP cleanrooms here in Glasgow. All our efforts are now focussed on meeting UK regulations prior to MHRA inspection of the facility in November.”

TCB’s executive chairman Dr Artin Moussavi said: “The team is rapidly advancing towards launch of a novel cell therapy for treatment of cancer patients in Europe, and opening of our clinical manufacturing facility marks an important milestone along this journey. The initial target indication is melanoma, a significant unmet medical need. We believe our gamma delta T cell platform has an excellent chance of providing safe and effective therapy for these patients.”