I don't believe it's possible to build out Sawston until you know what you're building. If the U.K. approved DCVax-L but it was clear that approval of FlaskWorks units were still some time off, they'd need to build at least some additional conventional clean rooms. Certainly each cleanroom might be designed to support many FlaskWorks units, but the design would still be substantially different than if all production was to be done with the FlaskWorks units from the get-go.
I would think that NWBO has a plan that builds out all of Sawston with FlaskWorks units, but that won't proceed until such time as they know it will be, or has been, accepted.
I'm still a believer that NWBO has thoughts of distributed processing where FlaskWorks units can be leased to regional research facilities and hospitals where adequate support already exists. I'm sure that City of Hope would easily be able to handle FlaskWorks units with a little instruction and they have the lab facilities to put them in.
I really don't know, but I've heard other opine that in substantial volumes the FlaskWorks units can be built for several thousands of dollars. If in reality worldwide there were 1000 facilities similar to City of Hope that could act as regional centers for producing DCVax-L, if each of those facilities handled 10 units that would be 10,000 units. If each unit produces 50 batches of DCVax-L a year, that's half a million patients a year who could be served from existing institutions with virtually no construction costs at all.
In such an arrangement, I would think that each of the institutions that house FlaskWorks units would earn money for each batch they produced, whether they used it themselves, or provided it to another nearby hospital, but NWBO would see the lion's share of the money being charged for the vaccine.
Gary
