What Will it Take to Re­al­ize the Promise and Po­ten­tial of Im­mune Cell Ther­a­pies?

What does it take to get to the fin­ish line with a new can­cer ther­a­py – fast? With ap­provals in place and hun­dreds of im­mune cell ther­a­py can­di­dates in the pipeline, the glob­al in­dus­try is poised to cre­ate a fun­da­men­tal shift in can­cer treat­ments to­wards pre­ci­sion med­i­cine. At the same time, unique chal­lenges as­so­ci­at­ed with cell and process com­plex­i­ty present man­u­fac­tur­ing bot­tle­necks that de­lay speed to mar­ket and height­en cost of goods sold (COGS) — these hur­dles must be over­come to make pre­ci­sion treat­ments an op­tion for every can­cer pa­tient. This se­ries of ar­ti­cles high­lights some of the key man­u­fac­tur­ing chal­lenges as­so­ci­at­ed with the pro­duc­tion of cell-based can­cer ther­a­pies as well as the so­lu­tions need­ed to tran­scend them. Au­toma­tion, process knowl­edge, scal­a­bil­i­ty, and as­sured sup­ply of high-qual­i­ty start­ing ma­te­r­i­al and reagents are all crit­i­cal to re­al­iz­ing the full po­ten­tial of CAR-based ther­a­pies and sus­tain­ing the mo­men­tum achieved in re­cent years. The ar­ti­cles will high­light lead­ing-edge tech­nolo­gies that in­cor­po­rate these fea­tures to in­te­grate across work­flows, ac­cel­er­ate time­lines and re­duce COGS – along with how these ap­proach­es are en­abling the bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try to cross the fin­ish line faster with new treat­ment op­tions for pa­tients in need.

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