Iordanis Arzimanoglou References CGT Pathfinder Challenge in Science Business Interview

Iordanis Arzimanoglou, EIC Program Manager for health and biotechnology, spoke to Science|Business about the European Innovation Council’s pathfinder programme aimed at Europe’s cell and gene therapy sector.

In the interview, which was published soon after the PAT4CGT project was launched in October 2022, Iordanis Arzimanoglou spoke about the pathfinder's aim of filling gaps in Europe’s cell and gene therapy sector.

Read Iordanis Arzimanoglou’s interview

PAT4CGT was recognized for its disruption potential and was one of only eight projects selected from 132 submissions to the 2021 EIC Pathfinder Challenge call for ‘Emerging Technologies for Cell & Gene Therapies’. Together, the consortium received €3.6M from the European Commission, with an additional €1.1M from the Swiss federal government's agency for education, research and innovation (SERI).

Currently, CGT manufacturing methods suffer from an important technological dept and still rely on semi-automated processes in centralised facilities. This lack of process scalability results in low throughput, high costs, and ultimately to limited global production capacity, preventing many patients from accessing this next generation of therapies.

In-process quality control monitoring of cell culture is one key bottle-neck. It is open and manual, with a high risk of introducing human error and contamination. To address this issue, the PAT4CGT project will develop a miniaturised sensor platform that automatically collects critical process parameters data and build an ‘intelligence’ predictive tool, paving the way towards real-time monitoring and improvements of CGT manufacturing processes.