The Consortium for Pediatric Cellular Immunotherapy (CPCI) led by Principal Investigators, Bonnie Ramsey, MD and Julie Park, MD is a five-site Consortium of pediatric hospitals and their partner CTSIs, funded by a five-year U01 grant from the NIH/NCATS. One of the main objectives of the grant is to share cellular therapy expertise, especially related to infrastructure issues, both across and outside of the Consortium, to further the field. The Consortium supports numerous Committees and Working Groups who share information within the organization and have developed outputs like papers and document templates as a way to further educate those outside of the Consortium.

The CPCI is a key resource for any site interested in developing the capability to participate in pediatric cellular immunotherapy. We are delighted that the ITHS website provides us with a platform to begin sharing this expertise

In consultation with the ITHS Office of Communications, and the CTSI for UW/FHCRC/SC, the CPCI determined that the most effective way to share its learnings would be via a website. As the CPCI develops additional tools this website can be updated easily. According to Liz Gruber, the Consortium’s Program Manager, “the ITHS communications team has been an excellent partner, providing a strong framework for site development and a professional team to execute the site’s construction, resulting in a site we are proud to launch.” The site will serve as a vehicle to share the Consortium’s expertise in the developing field of pediatric cellular immunotherapy.

“The CPCI is a key resource for any site interested in developing the capability to participate in pediatric cellular immunotherapy. We are delighted that the ITHS website provides us with a platform to begin sharing this expertise,” shared Dr. Ramsey.

The primary audience for the website is other health care organizations who currently have or are considering building cellular therapy programs. This is still a new and developing field and the CPCI wants to be able to share the learnings from the Consortium more broadly to encourage the creation of additional programs and trial sites. Currently patients, and because our patients are children, their caregivers, often need to travel extensively to receive this type of treatment, leading to barriers to access. Barriers include travel time/cost, time away from other children in the family and time away from work. By helping other institutions build their capabilities more efficiently, more patients can be treated closer to home. This audience will find educational tools on the site like papers which explain key processes and template documents to adopt as they build their programs.

Secondary audiences include referring providers and patients/caregivers. Currently the site includes links to the trials that have been developed at the Consortium members’ sites, providing another way for providers and patients/caregivers to learn about trials. In the future we will publish links to publicly available educational materials to help both providers and patients/caregivers as they consider treatment options.

The CPCI sites and investigators have worked hard over the past 4 years and have successfully moved highly complex Phase 1 cellular immunotherapy studies into several multi-center Phase 2 studies. “With this accomplishment, we have achieved our primary goal while optimizing access and safety for this very vulnerable pediatric population” shared Dr. Ramsey. In the process, the CPCI has developed standardized processes for manufacture, shipping and administration of novel cellular immunotherapy products. The network also has many standard processes such as protocol templates, eCRF’s, safety monitoring protocols that have all enhanced the safety and success of these trials.

The launch of our CPCI website provides further opportunity for our team to assist other institutions that are looking to initiate or expand their institutional resources related to cellular therapy

“The CPCI provides the exciting opportunity to leverage experiences and resources of five pediatric institutions to accelerate the development and implementation of cellular therapy for the treatment of pediatric diseases. The launch of our CPCI website provides further opportunity for our team to assist other institutions that are looking to initiate or expand their institutional resources related to cellular therapy.  We are confident that such resources will help to further advance novel therapies of pediatric disease”, shared Dr. Park.

Participating Sites: Children’s Hospital Los Angeles/Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Children’s National Hospital/Clinical and Translational Science Institute at Children’s National, Colorado Children’s Hospital/Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, Seattle Children’s Hospital/Institute of Translational Health Sciences and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital/UCSF Clinical & Translational Science Institute

Please visit our website https://www.iths.org/cpci/ for more information or contact Liz Gruber: liz.gruber@seattlechildrens.org