cell and gene therapy Archives - Medical Design Sourcing

The balancing act of biotherapy: Be The Match BioTherapies’ Abby Waters on agility and beyond

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Professionals in the biotherapy world are engaged in a sort of balancing act, juggling the nuances of product development, complex science, leadership dynamics, and patient-centricity. In a recent interview, Abby Waters, Ph.D., senior manager of solution owners at Be The Match BioTherapies, opens up about her decade-long journey navigating these multifaceted challenges. From embracing agile methodologies to driving data-informed decisions, Waters shares insights on leading teams, prioritizing patients, and envisioning the future in this quickly evolving field.

In the interview — part of our Women in Pharma and Biotech series, Waters provided insights on an array of subjects, from adopting the IT-based agile framework to cell-and-gene therapy to the art of hiring and weighing hard and soft skills in the biotherapy domain. She also provided advice on approaching data-driven decisions, and offered per…

The shift from manual to machine learning in cell and gene therapy drug discovery

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Cell and gene therapy (CGT) manufacturing is rapidly transitioning from scientific curiosity to clinical reality. But the manufacturing complexity of CGTs far outpaces traditional biologics production, presenting a multifaceted challenge that is part scientific, part technological. “The manufacturing process for cell therapies and gene therapies is infinitely more complex than it is for let’s say, monoclonal antibodies or recombinant proteins,” said Betty Woo, vice president and general manager of cell, gene, & advanced therapies at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Despite the complexity, much of the current cell therapy manufacturing process relies on manual procedures. “Manual intervention introduces a level of human variability,” Woo said. “This not only leads to inconsistencies, but also increases the risk of human error.”

While manufac…

CGT demands vision, partnership and patient-centricity to transform healthcare

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As personalized medicine continues to progress, cell and gene therapy (CGT) development is poised to enable tremendous medical breakthroughs. Unlike traditional treatments which merely manage symptoms, CGT could treat the root biological cause of many diseases: the faulty genes.

“The cell and gene therapy space is truly exciting. What this ultimately means for patients and caregivers, and our ability to play an important part within this paradigm, is exhilarating,” said Dr. Panteli Theocharous, the global vice president and cell and gene therapy strategy lead at PPD.

With more than 20 years of experience in the pharma and biotech industries, Theocharous provides guidance on developing CGTs. He accentuates the importance of partnerships, data-driven approaches and patient-centricity in overcoming challenges.

Yet the path forward is filled with obstacles. In 2021, cell and gene …

What’s in store for cell and gene therapy in 2023

[Credit: National Human Genome Research Institute]

The complexity and diversity of cell and gene therapies and treatments still restrains the industry’s ability to identify and deliver the proper treatment and a positive patient experience. In 2023, I expect we will see a considerable increase in critical data gathering and machine learning analysis that will lead to substantive improvements. This use of machine learning requires a continual commitment to invest in technology as it develops to ensure the required infrastructure is in place to achieve the most significant advances. And, while the infrastructure required to optimize machine learning fully is still in development, we will begin to realize its impact on drug discovery and development and on our ability to deliver personalized medicine this year.

Such leaps forward in the cell and gene therapy industry requires a growing emphasis on innovation. And t…

How Mission Bio is working to drive precision medicine

[Image courtesy of Mission Bio]

Mission Bio (San Francisco) is a growth-stage company spun out of the microfluidics lab at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in 2014.

“We have been commercial since late 2017,” said the company’s CEO, Yan Zhang, in a recent interview.

Initially focusing on oncology, Mission Bio has cast its gaze across precision medicine to cell and gene therapies. “We’re really in this incredible cross-section of oncology and cell and gene therapy,” Zhang said.

The company’s Tapestri platform can simultaneously provide:

Genotype and immunophenotype data from a single cell. Detection of copy number variants (CNV).

Mission Bio has raised $110.9 million to date.

Zhang said that the company aims to “help drug developers take precision medicine to the next level.”