Pre-Conference Bootcamp Day

Manufacturing & Characterization Bootcamp
Monday, October 2, 2023

9:00 am Morning Coffee & Networking

Enhancing Large Scale TIL Production: Overcoming the Quality Expansion Paradox

9:25 am Chair’s Opening Remarks

  • Michael Lotze Professor of Surgery, Immunology and Bioengineering, Pittsburgh University

9:30 am Optimizing TIL Expansion through Closed System Culture

  • Michael Lotze Professor of Surgery, Immunology and Bioengineering, Pittsburgh University

Synopsis

  • Determining the optimal culture conditions to maximize TIL cell quality
  • Leveraging a closed system to prevent external contamination
  • Boosting cell growth and optimizing harvesting to enhance large-scale closed production of TIL

10:00 am Leveraging Automation to Facilitate Large Scale Manufacturing

Synopsis

  • Developing technology to streamline manufacturing processes
  • Utilizing these systems to remove human error and simplify TIL production
  • Implementing automation to drive down costs 

10:30 am Round Table: Discussing Feeder vs Feeder Free Systems to Explore Future TIL Production Methods

Synopsis

  • Procuring effective allogeneic feeder cells to promote cell expansion 
  • Comparing efficacies of both systems to determine advantages and suitability  for TIL
  • Can we employ a feeder-free system to reduce toxicity and GvHD risks?

11:00 am Morning Break & Refreshments

11:30 am Engineering to Accelerate Manufacturing & Decrease Production Timeline

  • Sumit Verma Vice President, Global Strategic Manufacturing, Iovance

Synopsis

  • Reducing production turnaround time to prevent tumor progression and patient deterioration
  • Leveraging co-stimulants to accelerate TIL expansion
  • Assessing benefits of pre-REP vs REP to generate optimal TIL growth for various tumor types

Enhancing Product Characterization to Support Applicable Product Release Assays

12:00 pm Round Table: Reinventing Potency Assays to Cater for TIL & Facilitate Regulatory Compliance

Synopsis

  • Pinpointing methods to effectively quantify TIL reactivity to the tumor to define targeting power
  • Classifying approaches to measure TCR diversity and repertoire to uncover target landscape for assay development
  • Collaborating to distinguish successful killing assays for a heterogeneous product to measure targeting ability

12:30 pm Lunch Break & Refreshments

Exploring the Future of TIL Production to Increase Accessibility

1:30 pm Developing Off-the-Shelf TIL Technology to Increase Patient Access & Treatment Ability

  • Hua Liu CSO, Shanghai Xinghua Biomedical & Biopharmaceuticals

Synopsis

  • Powerful components of TIL (CTL) manufactured with a purity of CD8+ T cells greater than 95%: as a universal off-the-shelf TIL product, unlimited quantity can be produced
  • Allogeneic universal ready-to-use TIL technology greatly expands the scope of clinical applications, does not require tumor acquisition from patients, or gene editing of TCR
  • Clinical observations and experimental evidence indicate that UR-TIL can exert graft GvL or GvT therapeutic effect but avoid GvHD and encouraging clinical benefits were observed. UR-TIL can be used repeatedly or in combination 

2:00 pm Bitesize Workshop: Shaping the Future of Clinical-Grade TIL Manufacturing

Synopsis

  • Automated, closed and GMP-compliant TIL manufacturing
  • One system, many options: Modular and flexible process to meet individual needs
  • Clinical-scale sorting of TIL subsets in combination with the MACSQuant Tyto Cell Sorter

4:00 pm Close of Bootcamp