Miltenyi Biotec, announced the signing of a Letter of Intent with the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology in New Delhi. With this partnership, both organisations aim to address the growing need for innovative treatments in the fight against cancer by developing innovative cell and gene therapies.
The purpose of this collaboration is to focus on leveraging the strengths of both organisations to enhance research and development in cell and gene therapy (CGT) focusing on cancer and sickle cell disease. This collaboration would help in capacity building, technology transfer, training programs, and joint research initiatives which would then be translated into medical therapies.
Cell and gene therapy offers personalised and targeted approaches where a patient’s immune cells are used to fight cancer more effectively. While being less of a burden on other cell types in the patient‘s body compared to standard of care chemotherapy, cell and gene therapies so far need to further improve in scalability and affordability. Therefore, Miltenyi Biotec aims to offer cutting-edge and affordable solutions by advancing and accelerating the development of therapies closer to the patient site to fight against cancer, particularly leukemia and lymphoma.
The letter of intent was signed by Sivakumar Natarajan – Managing Director (Interim), Miltenyi Biotec, India, Dr Prudwidhar S – Country Medical Affairs Director at Miltenyi Biotec and Prof. Ganesan Karthikeyan, Executive Director, BRIC-Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (BRIC-THSTI) in the presence of Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (IC) Ministry of Science & Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences; Minister of State for PMO, MoPPP, DAE and DoS, Government of India and Dr Rajesh S Gokhale, Director General, BRIC & Secretary, Department of Biotechnology.