03.08.24 -- New Episodes: Yescarta's Reduced Median Turnaround Time, Inhalable mRNA and more!

Check out the latest episodes from Cell & Gene: The Podcast and Business of Biotech. As a member of the Life Science Connect community, you have access to content beyond our weekly newsletters, including our podcast series.

Kite Pharma's global head of technical operations, Christopher McDonald, talks to host Erin Harris about Kite's recent FDA approval of manufacturing process change resulting in reduced median turnaround time for Yescarta. They talk through the most significant steps Kite took to reach this approval, lessons learned from having worked with the FDA, scaling up technologies for cell therapy manufacturing, and more. 

Rare Disease Day was February 29, 2024, and in honor of this important day, Cell & Gene: The Podcast host Erin Harris sat down with Jackson Laboratory’s (JAX) Rare Disease Translational Center (RDTC)'s VP, Cat Lutz.

Without a doubt, the grand and collaborative experiment that was the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine contributed mightily to the pandemic response and continues to save many lives. It also demonstrated the collective power of public/private partnership in biopharma.

The concept of programmable biology is fueling a new breed of biotech, one that requires the marriage of computational and traditional science (and both computational and traditional scientists) on the entire journey from discovery to commercial. bit.bio is exemplary of this new breed.

You may be aware that Sail Biomedicines was just formed up in Q4 of last year, the product of Flagship Pioneering’s decision to merge Senda Biosciences and Laronde, two of its programmable medicine platform companies. What you likely haven’t heard is the inside story on how the merger was executed, how the two companies are integrating their talent, IP, and resources, and what Sail Biomedicines CEO Dr. Guillaume Pfefer and team are currently doing to take the fruits of the company’s platform into the clinic. 

Multimodal approaches to the delivery of radiologically active compounds have created a fertile environment for players in the space to put on a precision medicine clinic, so to speak. What’s more, radiopharmaceuticals create a unique business opportunity, given the closely related and necessary companion diagnostic arena.