From left: Dr Tony Holohan, Dr Aine Adams and Gary McAuslan. Image: Chris Bellew/Fennell Photography
Founded in 2020, aCGT Vector is a member of the Irish Government-funded Healed Consortium. Holohan was a former medical adviser to the Department of Health.
Irish cell therapy company aCGT Vector has today (2 November) announced two new executive-level appointments to guide its future growth.
Following his recent retirement as chief medical officer to the Irish Government, Dr Tony Holohan joins the company’s advisory board as chair.
Dr Aine Adams has also joined aCGT Vector as head of cell therapy. She is coming to the company from pharma manufacturing business Takeda.
aCGT Vector was founded in 2020. It is a member of the Irish Government-funded Healed Consortium.
It specialises in chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy, which is rapidly evolving as a therapeutic procedural approach for the treatment of rare diseases and cancer.
Last year, the company received a multimillion-euro funding boost to bring cell therapy pods to St James’s Hospital in Dublin.
aCGT Vector is currently working to bring its cell therapy pods to other hospitals around the country also.
The pods are self-contained units which can be dropped in or driven to a hospital campus. Each pod brings miniaturised, right-sized pharma-grade CAR-T therapy processing into or close to hospitals. All pods are digitally enabled and integrated and they can be scaled appropriate to the number of patients to be treated.
The company aims to improve treatment outcomes and decrease waiting times for patients receiving treatment.
Commenting on Holohan’s appointment to the advisory board, aCGT Vector’s CEO and co-founder Gary McAuslan described him as “one of the outstanding and most respected public health professionals in Europe”.
Holohan said aCGT Vector has “the potential to transform patient access to cutting-edge innovations in cell therapy”.
“I’m delighted to work with Gary and his team to help create and lead an advisory board that strategically supports the business in the coming years.”
Earlier this year, aCGT Vector teamed up with NovaUCD spin-out Empiric Logic. The partnership means the company can leverage Empiric Logic’s tech to bring its cell therapy to the market faster.
Empiric Logic’s tech product is an AI-powered bioinformatics platform that aims to explore health research without compromising patient data.
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