iMATCH (Innovate Manchester Advanced Therapy Centre Hub)
iMATCH (Innovate Manchester Advanced Therapy Centre Hub) is a Manchester-born consortium focused on scale-up of activity in ATMPs, aiming to improve access to ATMPs for patients, while ensuring their efficient and safe delivery.
Through funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and in close collaboration with NIHR infrastructure and its counterparts in the devolved administrations, the ATTC network aims to build upon its existing work, expand its reach, and integrate its initiatives into standard practice. The primary focus will be on enhancing the readiness of advanced therapy clinical trials, with the goal of expanding capacity and capability across a broader network to bring more innovative therapies to patients and strengthen the UK’s appeal to industry.
The objectives of the iMATCH consortium focus on maximising patient access to ATMPs. To date this has been delivered through:
- Integration of sample collection
- Utilising novel digital implementation platforms to develop electronic sample traceability and tracking systems
- Innovative systems for clinical data capture to increase the knowledge and safety of these complex treatments
- Scale up in the clinical setting to meet the needs of delivery within the NHS by working to relieve bottlenecks preventing patient access to ATMPs
- Development of education materials to prepare our NHS staff to give the understanding required for working with these ground-breaking treatments.
Location
Leadership team
Dr Fiona Thistlethwaite is a Christie NHS Foundation Trust Consultant and iMATCH director with active clinical trials research portfolio of early phase trials in particular immunotherapy. Her research focuses on how the immune system can be harnessed against cancer, in particular using adoptive cell transfer of T-cells activated against cancer antigens.
Dr Fiona Thistlethwaite is a Christie NHS Foundation Trust Consultant and iMATCH director with active clinical trials research portfolio of early phase trials in particular immunotherapy. Her research focuses on how the immune system can be harnessed against cancer, in particular using adoptive cell transfer of T-cells activated against cancer antigens.
