Prevent Supply Chain Breakdowns: 5 Operational Gaps To Avoid CGT Patient Risks

In cell and gene therapy, supply chain failures carry consequences that go far beyond financial loss. A single compromised shipment can eliminate a patient's only treatment window, which means the margin for error is effectively zero. Yet many manufacturers still rely on fragmented logistics systems that mask operational weaknesses until a crisis is already underway.

Five gaps deserve your attention. First, when logistics are poorly managed, scientists and manufacturing staff get pulled into shipment coordination, pulling focus away from the pipeline and patient outcomes. Live location data and dedicated project managers solve this. Second, passive monitoring is not enough. Knowing where a shipment is tells you nothing about whether it will arrive viable. Systems that detect temperature drift before a threshold is breached give teams time to intervene, whether that means rerouting a package or correcting a handling error mid-transit.

The remaining gaps follow a similar pattern: reactive tools substituted for proactive strategy, siloed teams lacking shared visibility, and insufficient planning for the unexpected. Each gap compounds the others.

If your organization is scaling CGT programs or preparing for commercial launch, audit your logistics operations against these five areas now, before a patient-impacting event reveals the weakness for you.