The pharmaceutical industry’s success has become something of a double-edged sword, and our healthcare systems are burdened with the costs of lifestyle challenges. Everyday businesses and healthcare professionals must work diligently to improve our quality of life, but pricing and access will continue to be a battle globally that the industry must take note of.
In recent years, cell and gene therapies have been generating highly promising results in clinical studies, advancing them toward the market. However, the small number of products launched to date have not been proven commercial successes, with a number of advanced therapies being withdrawn from the EU market and limited sales of CAR-T therapies in the U.S.
Cell and gene therapy offers extended-term relief from disease states but comes at high cost with a complex reimbursement model. What proportion of intervention costs should be levied up front, and what proportion can be phased into the future (when the patient benefits accrue and are proven)? Separating the payment timeline from the treatment schedule is often referred to as outcome-based costing.
Innovation in gene therapy brings the potential for transforming patient care and obviating the need for chronic therapy through single-dose cures. Despite the potential long-term benefits of this new therapeutic modality, gene therapy companies face a number of underappreciated challenges.
Over the past four decades, and especially in recent years, progress in the development of cell and gene therapies has reached unprecedented levels. In gene therapy alone, between 1989 and 2015 there were more than 2,330 clinical research programs targeting almost 50 different indications.1,2 As more cell and gene therapies reach commercial stage, industry insiders expect research in the sector to continue to expand in the coming years. For patients, clinicians, and health systems, new cell and gene therapies bring the promise of historic and transformative advances in the treatment of many serious diseases.
Streamlining, connecting, and automating workflows to shape the future of cellular treatment delivery has the potential to transform how we treat and potentially cure once life-threatening diseases.
Emerging cellular therapies aim to manufacture cell populations for clinical indications, such as cancer, autoimmune, and cardiovascular diseases. As hospitals and translational facilities explore implementation of this technology they concurrently evaluate whether or not to manufacture the therapies onsite. Here is a guideline of how and when to get started.
Because the parameters for ex vivo cell and gene therapy manufacturing differ considerably from chemical drug production, life sciences companies are likely to encounter challenges along key stages of the product life cycle.
Through proper implementation of ICH Q12 tools and enablers, the industry could manage CMC changes effectively under a company’s pharma quality system with less need for oversight prior to implementation.
This article outlines six recent regulatory changes in China intended to protect patient safety as well as reduce regulatory burdens and minimize delays.
