Northwest Biotherapeutics, a biotechnology company developing DCVax personalized immune therapies for solid tumor cancers, started production of its first dendritic cell cancer vaccine for a compassionate use patient at its recently licensed production facility in Sawston, UK.

This milestone follows approval by the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) of a license for manufacture of GMP (clinical grade) cell therapy products at its Sawston, UK facility for compassionate use cases, and approval by the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) of a license for collection and processing of human cells and tissues for medical purposes.  Under this regulatory program in the UK, the vaccine is identified as ADCV (Autologous Dendritic Cell Vaccine).

As previously reported, the MHRA license was received in December of 2021, following nearly two years of preparations. This included hiring and training of technical staff, preparation of approximately 1,000 regulatory documents (including standard operating procedure documents and others), validation of facilities, equipment and protocols, and practice manufacturing cycles. This was followed by a review and detailed inspection by the MHRA.

Since the issuance of the MHRA license, Advent Bioservices, NW Bio’s contract manufacturer in the UK, has been conducting the required post-approval re-validations and testing so that the facility is now ready for the manufacture of cell therapy products for clinical use. The first vaccine production for compassionate use treatment for a glioblastoma patient has now begun in the Sawston facility.

The company anticipates that Phase 1A of the Sawston facility will have the capacity to produce cancer vaccines for 450-500 patients per year. The company plans to continue developing the Sawston facility in phases, both to calibrate the capital expenditures with the capacity needed and to leave room for implementation of new technologies such as the Flaskworks system.