Member Article

NE life sciences firms to meet world-leading scientists

Life sciences firms from across the North East will have the opportunity to hear from world-leading regenerative medicine experts when they gather in Newcastle for the annual Regener8 conference this September.

The event, which is entitled ‘Regenerative Therapies: the Road to the Clinic’, aims to share best practice on how to progress regenerative therapies into the clinic.

The conference is being held at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art on Thursday 27 September. The event marks Regener8’s 5th anniversary, and will feature some of the leading regenerative medicine experts in the UK.

Regener8 is a partnership of academics from the eight leading research-intensive universities in the North of England, known as the N8 Research Partnership. The N8 universities are Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York. Regener8 is also made up of members from the regenerative medicine industry and clinicians involved in the application of regenerative therapies in the UK. Regener8’s aim is to improve the translation of regenerative therapies to the clinic and the market.

Professor John Fisher, Director of the Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, University of Leeds and Executive Director of Regener8 said:

“Regenerative medicine is a sector that is populated by many SMEs facing the challenges of translating emerging technologies in an environment of regulatory and strategic uncertainties. By bringing together all the key players involved in taking these therapies to market and encouraging dialogue and collaboration between academia and industry we expect to raise awareness and capability and overcome these barriers.

“We hope that by sharing experiences and best practice as well as encouraging discussion we can help to speed the process of getting the treatments from the lab to the clinic to benefit those who need it most.”

Sir Alan Langlands, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) will open the Regener8 Annual Conference with high profile keynote speakers confirmed including Wilfried Dalemans, Chief Technical Officer of TiGenix, a leading European cell therapy company and Keith Thompson, CEO of the of the newly formed Cell Therapy Catapult Centre at Guy’s Hospital. Created by the Technology Strategy Board, the Cell Therapy Catapult will be a single, autonomous entity, nationally inclusive, independent of higher education institutions, and will play a significant role in speeding up development of cell therapies and accelerating routes to market.

Another confirmed keynote speaker is Helen Berry, Research and Technical Manager of Tissue Regenix Group, a York-based medical technology company which has developed a proprietary technology platform to make replacement body parts from biological (animal) materials. This proprietary platform, known as the dCELL® technology platform, works by removing all cells (decellularisation) from the animal tissue allowing it to be used to replace worn out or diseased body parts.

Helen’s talk will focus on the key steps and considerations that Tissue Regenix went through in order to translate an innovative research concept into a final regulatory approved medical device product.

Helen said:

“It is important for the regenerative medicine community to have the opportunity to meet up and work together, and Regener8 provides the perfect platform for this. Earlier collaboration between academia, clinicians and industry can help smooth the transition from research project to new product development, and accelerate progression to clinical use. I am delighted to be involved to share my experience of the process we went through to get our technology into the clinic.”

The Regener8 Annual Conference 2012, ‘Regenerative Therapies: the Road to the Clinic’ takes place at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead Quays, Tyne and Wear on Thursday 27 September 2012. The delegate fee is £75 and existing Regener8 members as well as new representatives from the wider regenerative medicine community are welcome.

Please visit www.regener8.ac.uk for further details and to register.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Georgia Linscott .