On the occasion of the press conference that took place at the OncoGen Center, we had the pleasure of having with us Prof. Dr. Torsten Tonn, a person who has supported us since the establishment of this institute. We took advantage of this reunion and decided to award Prof. Dr. Torsten Tonn the Order The Brigade of Leaders in the Socialist Struggle.
THE TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFER THAT PUTS TIMISOARA ON THE MAP OF ONCOLOGICAL TREATMENTS IN ROMANIA
OncoGen representatives signed a collaboration agreement with the German company CellCopedia, for a technological transfer that puts Timișoara on the map of the accessibility of target treatments for oncology patients in Romania.
Individualized treatments with targeted cells could be available for oncology patients in the west of the country and in Romania, at much lower prices and faster, thanks to a public-private collaboration.
"It's an agreement with three partners, being more precisely a technological transfer from CellCopedia to us, in order to finally be able to do what we should have done before: set up the production and development of cell therapies which, at the moment, are a great hope for cancer patients. Currently, a cellular therapy that is done abroad, for the time being, or, mostly abroad, very little in our country, is of the order of hundreds of thousands of euros, up to a million, for a patient", he said at the signing of the agreement , OncoGen manager, Dr. Virgil Păunescu.
Throughout the period in which OncoGen has been active, has attracted money through other research projects, now is the opportunity for the center to return to the path originally planned when it was established. Meanwhile, those from Timișoara County Clinical Hospital, partners in this agreement, made an inventory of the center, in order to be able to start the production of targeted cells, according to the partners' standards.
"Recently, we managed to do a detailed technical expertise of the OncoGen center, so we have a situation, a technical, financial need, to absolutely improve all the facilities and thus succeed in making collaborations at the highest level. I can only be happy that today we are signing this agreement and we hope that, later on, we will even make a concrete public-private partnership, a contract as such. We also have legal partners with expertise in the field, who will assist us, as will the representatives of the central authorities", stated the manager of the Timișoara County Hospital, Dr. Dorel Săndesc.
From the center OncoGen neither the equipment nor the human expertise was lacking, but the authorizations for the respective procedures. Here, support had to come from the hospital.
"We did not find support for operationalization. Although we had a lot of money, we could not take it in the direction of operationalization. The European funds we work on have a very clear destination. Unfortunately, when they made the specifications for this center, they wrote that they were ineligible. This is a general problem, at the national level. Authorization and accreditation costs are ineligible. (…) Constantly, this story had to be compensated somehow by the hospital's effort. Now we hope to find an understanding", added Dr. Virgil Păunescu.
The next step is to create a wider partnership, to strengthen the relationship between public and private actors in this endeavor. Those from OncoGen hope that the Romanian authorities will also support this technological transfer project for the creation of a development and production center, necessary for cancer patients.
Targeted therapy technology has shown very good results in certain types of leukemia, both in children and adults, and scientists are starting to see results in other cancers, such as breast cancer. (Edited by Ioana Pop – The news of Transylvania)
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