Southampton Emerging Therapies and Technologies (SETT) Centre

The SETT Centre catalyses research and innovation focused on NHS needs in emerging areas with vanguard potential for clinical service development and substantial growth opportunity.

Leadership

Professor Christopher Kipps, SETT Centre Director

The SETT Centre was established in 2021 to bring together and focus on three exciting areas within which we can translate cutting edge research and innovation into clinical care and patient outcomes.

Since 2021 SETT has supported over 153 research studies. We have grown from a handful of people to a wide network of over 35 people all collaborating at different points along the research pathway to improve patient care.

Our vision is to

• bring life changing cures closer to those who need them
• accelerate clinical testing of innovations and translate technology into clinical care and
• harness cutting-edge data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence into care delivery.

 

Advanced Therapies

University Hospital Southampton (UHS) is at the forefront of delivering Advanced Therapy clinical trials, translating cutting-edge research into real-world treatments that change patient outcomes.

Our focus

• Advancing gene and cell therapies through delivering high-quality research
• Being a central part of the national conversation through membership of the Advanced Therapy Treatment Centre 2 Network
• Supporting Advanced Therapy delivery in the wider regional community, including primary care centres in Wessex

Our impact

• 60+ patients treated with Advanced Therapy Investigational Medicinal Products (ATIMPs) since 2018 at UHS
• Patients with lifelong diseases, including haemophilia B, have experienced curative therapy outcomes

• UHS are a flagship centre for clinical trials delivered through the Cancer Vaccine Launchpad (CVLP), coordinated by the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit. CVLP is a nationally significant platform increasing regional access to advanced therapy studies across the NHS. By supporting early-phase cancer vaccine trials, CVLP ensures more patients can benefit from innovative, personalised treatments, closer to home.

• UHS treated the first UK patient enrolled through CVLP into the SCOPE cancer vaccine study
• UHS achieved the highest national recruitment to ZUMA-22, a cellular therapy study sponsored by Kite Pharma Ltd

 

MedTech and Innovation

At University Hospital Southampton (UHS), the SETT MedTech team has been established to support and accelerate the responsible, governed, and safe development and clinical evaluation of medical devices. We do this by providing MedTech-specific trial expertise and access to relevant samples and populations, leveraging strong regional, national, and international partnerships to deliver the right expertise at each stage of the innovation journey.

 

Data and AI

SETT is unlocking the full potential of clinical data by establishing Secure Data Environments that safely and efficiently link patient information at scale, enabling high-quality, impactful research. Through advanced automation, the SETT Data team can rapidly identify patient cohorts and support the timely recruitment of eligible participants to clinical trials. By harnessing cutting-edge data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, SETT is driving long-term improvements in patient care and accelerating the future of health research.

UHS is the host of the Wessex Secure Data Environment (SDE) as part of the national programme to unlock the potential of NHS data to support research, create life-saving new treatments and medicines, and bring wider benefits to patients and our NHS. Through the development of SDEs the NHS will have full control over who can access the data, the information that users can see, the actions that users can perform with the data, and the results of analysis that users can take out. Researchers will not see confidential patient information

The SETT data team are supporting this alongside university partners CIRU to develop, manage and maximise this exciting opportunity.