Advanced therapeutics

Advanced therapy medicinal products

The development of medicine, biomicrobiology and biotechnology has led to the emergence of a category of medicinal product that use gene therapy, somatic cell therapy and engineered tissues for preventing, treating or even curing human diseases. The novelty, complexity and diversity of such products has demanded new regulatory tools to allow an appropriate balancing of the risks and the benefits for the patients. EU and UK legislation regulates this category of products as ‘advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs)’ in order to ensure the highest level of protection of public health and to take into account their specific challenges, in particular with regard to clinical trials, manufacturing and pharmacovigilance.

There are three categories of ATMPs that are based on genes, cells (including stem cells), and tissues, respectively. ATMPs are a type of what is known as regenerative medicine (which refers to methods to replace or regenerate human cells, tissues or organs in order to restore or establish normal function and includes cell therapies, tissue engineering, gene therapy and biomedical engineering as well as more traditional treatments involving pharmaceuticals, biologics and devices). An ATMP is defined as:

‘…any of the following medicinal

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