This ERDF project involves the construction and installation of a pilot facility, which allows the sterile production of newly designed RNA-based drugs, for initial testing in humans. In recent years, dozens of new therapies based on living cells and/or nucleic acids, such as RNA, have been developed. With the help of these therapies, various incurable cancers can now be successfully treated, and genetic diseases such as hemophilia may be cured with just one injection in the near future. In addition, the COVID pandemic has also led to a major breakthrough of RNA vaccines. These RNA products are also currently being tested as anticancer drugs. A new facility for cell and gene therapies (CBT) will be built at Ghent University Hospital (UZGent) to replace the current facility. The current Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) cleanrooms are currently too limited in capacity and will not continue to comply with the regulations.With the new GMP facility, UZGent aims to enable the development and testing of new cell and gene therapies and RNA vaccines and therapeutics for companies and entrepreneurial researchers both in Flanders and internationally. Several of these new therapies are personalized because they are tailored to one patient. As a result, testing in animals often makes little sense. It follows that this new technology is mainly tested for safety by performing first tests in humans. To do this safely, these RNA-based treatments must be prepared in GMP conditions. This is the core activity of the GMP facility. Within the requested facility, these innovative CBTs will be manufactured in a sterile GMP environment, making them suitable for human use. In this way, companies and enterprising researchers can quickly, flexibly and locally conduct first clinical trials with these groundbreaking drugs. This facility will therefore facilitate the development of new therapies and RNA vaccines in Flanders and strengthen Flanders' position as a biotech hotspot. On the one hand, this facility is accessible to companies.Currently, there are already two long-term collaborations with industrial partners around RNA. This means that biotech companies can have a CBT product prepared on a small scale, for example as a personalized medicine, under GMP so that they can carry out initial clinical studies. This takes a lot of risk from the development pipeline of biotech companies and consequently increases the value of these companies. On the other hand, the activities of the GMP facility will contribute to the creation of new spin-off companies by enabling entrepreneurial researchers to develop new treatments. This also leads to more economic activities in Flanders. This application concerns co-financing for the establishment of the part of the GMP facility linked to the production of RNA-based CBT and vaccines. This concerns 7 of the 17 cleanrooms, one quality lab and associated state-of-the-art equipment.