“It’s only when you see all stakeholders together you realise the enormity and importance of the project and also the progress that has been made and the challenges faced and handled so far. Datatrial are immensely proud to be a part of the NAATTC and the legacy that will be built on in the future” Julie Wright, Commercial Director, Datatrial.
What a great start to the day with Dr Menne, Consultant Haematologist, helping us all understand exactly what the ‘SUPER T-CELL killing machine’ is all about. With the potential of killing trillions of cancer cells quickly and a high chance of achieving remissions there also comes many challenges. Apheresis slots, stem cell lab freezing capabilities, ITU capacity, and of course, cost to name but a few. Luckily, the attitude of all stakeholders involved in this project is to concentrate on the outcome and not the task. At the time of this conference, the NAATTC had 10 patients either treated or awaiting treatment with the aim of everyone to increase overall survival rates for these patients.
The demand for new technology to ensure institutional readiness for such advanced therapies will be high. Datatrial are working across the centres to help implement and advise on just a small part of the overall organisational needs. Coordinated data collection and sharing will certainly remain high on any agenda for a while to come along with the challenges of capacity and resourcing of the whole process. There is sure to be an element of both building on existing systems and developing new. Bringing institutional readiness and technology readiness levels to life and making them workable across the whole of the NHS, and not just in individual centres, will be key.
The technology topic was re-visited in the afternoon session when Christopher Vann, COO, Autolus Therapeutics offered an industry perspective on Advanced Therapy Delivery in the NHS. Focussing not only on the treatment but also on the systems around it. How best practice for patient follow up, more robust data capture and connected and traceable supply chains will be vital to a safe and effective treatment delivery to the patient. “There is a need for harmonisation (NHS and Industry) and to turn best practice in to business as usual” – hear hear! Christopher, very well said.
What a great way to celebrate and reflect on the end of Year 1 of this project. Now let’s get on with the rest of it.
Datatrial head up Work Package 6 – Informatics alongside TrakCel with the aim of utilising informatics to enhance patient engagement and data capture throughout the Advanced Therapies delivery pathway.
