A researcher added PolyU could be the only institution in Hong Kong to offer a one-stop solution for patients from treatment to rehabilitation, while clinical trials could begin in one or two years’ time.
Professor Larry Chow, the head of the Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, gave the media a tour of the Advanced Therapy Product (ATP) Laboratory at the school’s Tsim Sha Tsui campus.
He said the facility was set up with more than HK$40 million of funding from the University Grants Committee and PolyU.
It will conduct clinical research in immunotherapy and cell therapy, products which the researcher said have “significant potential for growth.”
His team is now joining hands with a Science Park firm to develop a treatment programme for spinal cord injury patients.
Chow said the lab is seeking a licence from the Department of Health to conduct clinical trials, a process which could take “one or two years.”
Once approval has been secured, researchers aim to recruit 10 patients for the first batch of clinical trials.
He admitted that currently, no spinal cord injury treatment has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, but said this is a good time for the city to build its capacity on advanced therapies.
“The government, both the Chinese as well as the Hong Kong local government, are very supportive of the local biomedical research, and we are seeing a lot of basic science, pre-clinical research in this area,” he said.
“And the building of these kinds of ATP sites will help to fill in the gap to allow this preclinical research to go into clinical research.”
