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ATMP Center

The Karolinska ATMP Center, a collaboration between Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital, is a leading ATMP center in Europe, bringing research, manufacturing, and treatment together under one roof. The center has high ambitions to strengthen and deepen collaboration with public stakeholders and pharmaceutical companies.

A woman in a lab coat and green gloves.

A long tradition in ATMP medicines

The major advances in research and development of advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) hold the potential to treat and cure diseases in ways that have not been possible with traditional medicines and treatments. Today, we see examples of gene therapy drastically improving survival for patients with certain types of cancer.

The collaboration between Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital in cell and gene therapies has a long history. As early as 1975, the foundation was laid for today’s Medical Unit for Cell Therapy and Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation (CAST) in Huddinge, which performs the highest number of stem cell transplants and cell therapies in Sweden. Today, both children and adult patients with cancer and immune diseases are offered blood stem cell transplantation and several ATMPs, either as standard treatment or in clinical trials. Karolinska’s program is JACIE-accredited and includes not only CAST but also pediatric hematology and transfusion medicine (KITM). In 2019, CAST carried out Sweden’s first standard treatment with CAR-T cells.

Our mission

The mission of the Karolinska ATMP Center is to consolidate all activities in advanced therapy medicinal products at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital to strengthen the development and implementation of cell, gene, and tissue therapies.

Vecura – a GMP unit

A person in a medical gown and mask in a room.

The GMP unit Vecura, part of the Karolinska Center for Cell Therapy (KCC), currently consisting of 13 cleanrooms, produced Sweden’s first gene therapy medicinal product for clinical trial in 1997, and in 2014, the first CAR-T cells that entered a clinical trial in Europe. Another GMP facility, with a particular focus on immunotherapy, is located at the Karolinska Comprehensive Cancer Center (KCCC).

In 2019, the Nordic region’s first pre-GMP unit was inaugurated at Karolinska Institutet Campus Flemingsberg, with five cleanrooms. The pre-GMP unit serves as an important bridge between research laboratories and Vecura and has played a crucial role in the development of two therapeutic products that are currently undergoing clinical trials.