The Promise Of Augmented Reality In Cell Therapy Manufacturing

Following their development in a lab, cell therapies must be scaled up and manufactured for delivery to patients. Going from bench to commercialization requires a successful tech transfer so that the process developed by research scientists can be performed by a cell therapy manufacturing team. That manufacturing team must be experts in following GMP practices and aseptic techniques, know how to use upstream and downstream processing equipment, and repeat the same exact process, with little to no deviations, over and over again in a clean room.

However, this process is often expensive and time-consuming. Modern technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, have a role to play in the industry’s quest to accelerate and improve cell therapy development and manufacturing while reducing costs to improve patient access.

Augmented reality (AR) is enabling drug sponsors to provide remote assistance and direction to the manufacturing team or CDMO. AR can be introduced to reduce cost, streamline timelines, and improve the effectiveness of activities that take place during knowledge transfer, method qualification, feasibility and pilot runs, and GMP-readiness.