The next healthcare revolution will apply regenerative medicines using human cells and tissues. However, whilst science has revealed the potential, and early products have shown the power of such therapies, the realisation of this opportunity as a 21st century industry also requires consistent manufacturing and appropriate business and cost structures. The goal of the remedi project is to realise delivery at an acceptable price. The last 15 years has seen the growth of an equivalent new healthcare industry based on human proteins produced in engineered organisms with a current market value of £30 billion a year. This project aims to tap the opportunity to replicate this growth in the new industry of regenerative medicine. The grand challenge aims to make a key contribution to the growth of regenerative medicine as an industry and unlock its potential to contribute to the UK economy. The programme is working to demonstrate how established bio-science can be transformed into profitable commercial practice and generate affordable therapies.
The 'Regenerative Medicine - A New Industry' Grand Challenge main aim is to demonstrate how established bio-science can be transformed into profitable commercial practice and generate affordable therapies while developing the science of manufacture. The main tasks include:
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determining the value of tissue engineered products to users in healthcare, thus defining the market place and showing how the development of regulation and industrial policy can maximise economic benefit while protecting patients
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creating and demonstrating reproducible cost effective processes for the scaleable production of cells, scaffolds, and tissue products that satisfy the regulator and take advantage of emerging sensing and control techniques
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constructing a community that integrates the Challenge programme and generates a shared vision for the industry and its future products and explores these visions practically. We are developing techniques to enable life science and manufacturing professionals in SMEs to create cost effective manufacturing systems, pre-clinically, while managing biological risk.
The deliverables include:
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A defined and characterised market place for regenerative medicine products that are acceptable to users and other stakeholders
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Policy and regulatory frameworks summarising the viable options to enable economic development of the industry
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Process demonstrators and process science that allows the design and realisation of processes for the manufacture of regenerative medicine products and their critical components
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New cost effective techniques to characterise, monitor and control regenerative medicine products and their production
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A UK community that has a shared vision of its future products and understands the techniques that must be applied to realise these at acceptable cost.
