Mayo Clinic, GE Ventures partnership to accelerate access to cell, gene therapies

GE Ventures and the Mayo Clinic have launched Vitruvian Networks, an independent platform company committed to accelerating access to cell and gene therapies through advanced, cloud-ready software systems and manufacturing services.

Because cell and gene therapy involve time- and resource-intensive processes to provide personalized therapies to patients, efficient and cost-effective solutions are required to expedite the transition of promising and potentially curative therapies from early clinical trials to a portfolio of products that advances medical care, according to the organizations.

Vitruvian Networks will partner with therapy producers and serve them by providing a state-of-the-art software and manufacturing platform to bring the “internet of things” to cell and gene therapies. At scale, the platform will be a network orchestrator for therapeutic companies, with powerful business intelligence and data analytics capabilities.

“Merging GE's operational excellence with emerging cell and gene therapies will enable faster, more effective and safer treatments for patients,” said Sue Siegel, CEO of GE Ventures and healthymagination, in a release. “Mayo Clinic is a key leader in patient treatment delivery in cancer care and regenerative medicine, so we are honored to have incubated this solution in joint partnership.”

Led by a hybrid of life science and software development experts, Vitruvian Networks initially will focus on the production of autologous cell therapies that target blood cancers. The new company also will develop the supporting standards, infrastructure and ecosystem that will protect patients and expedite discovery, delivery and regulation in the field.

“Autologous therapies in the area of regenerative and personalized medicine have shown great promise in treating life-threatening diseases,” says Andre Terzic, MD, PhD, director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine. “We are excited that Vitruvian Networks will further drive standardization of the industry, increase scalability and bring forward the realization of critical therapeutic potential to address the unmet needs of patients around the world.”

Vitruvian Networks will use Mayo Clinic’s data related to biomarkers, cell therapy processes and clinical outcomes to guide further development of personalized therapies. The company will also leverage tools from GE Healthcare’s cell therapy business in addition to those of other leading partners. Vitruvian Networks will access the GE Store—a global exchange of knowledge, technology and tools from across the company—to repurpose analytical capabilities and manufacturing process excellence from business units, such as GE Healthcare, GE Aviation and GE Power.

“The highly customized nature of cell and gene therapies shows great promise for patient care, but it also introduces logistical challenges that make mass manufacturing uniquely complex,” says Kieran Murphy, president and CEO, GE Healthcare Life Sciences. “GE’s multiangle approach to driving the innovation in this industry will help to more quickly and efficiently bring cell and gene therapies to the patients who anxiously await them.”