EPISODE 3: View On Manufacturing Cell and Gene Therapies

 

Scaling Up Cell and Gene Therapies: Automation Is the Next Step 

In this episode, we take a deep dive into manufacturing cell and gene therapies with Lonza expert Behnam Ahmadian Baghbaderani, executive director of Cell and Gene Therapy Process Development.

Cell and gene therapies have the potential to revolutionize the treatment of rare genetic diseases, cancer, and neurodegenerative disorders. These therapies involve extracting cells or genetic material from a patient or donor, altering them and then re-injecting them back into the patient to provide a highly personalized treatment. However, the manufacturing process for these therapies is complex and expensive. To increase the availability of these therapies, the industry is making strides in scaling up the manufacturing process to reduce costs.

According to Behnam Ahmadian Baghbaderani, executive director of Cell and Gene Therapy Process Development at Lonza, “It is important to incorporate innovative technologies and reduce the cost of goods and production in order to make these therapies widely accessible for a large number of patients.”

One essential way to achieve this is through automation: automated cell culture systems, including bioreactors, can be used to grow and expand cells in a controlled environment, which reduces the need for manual labor while increasing consistency and reproducibility. Simply put, scaling up the manufacturing process using automation makes these therapies more widely accessible to the large number of patients who need them.

Curious to Know More?

Listen to this episode of A View On Cell and Gene Therapies to explore how cell and gene therapies are manufactured. Get an inside look into the next steps for the industry from Lonza expert Behnam Ahmadian Baghbaderani.

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KEY TERMS:

Cell therapy is a medical treatment that introduces living cells into a patient's body to replace or repair damaged or diseased cells, thereby providing highly personalized therapy.

Gene therapy is a cutting-edge, targeted medical treatment that introduces genetic material into patient's cells to treat or prevent diseases caused by genetic mutations.

Autologous refers to cells, tissues, or organs that are derived from the patient, thereby providing highly personalized treatment.

Allogenic refers to cells, tissues, or organs that are derived from a donor but not from the patient himself, thus providing an alternative source of treatment.

Viral vectors are a powerful tool in gene therapy, where a virus is genetically modified to carry therapeutic genetic material into patient's cells, acting as a delivery vehicle for the therapy.

A Bioreactor is a sophisticated device or system used to grow cells or tissues in a controlled environment, often used in manufacturing cell and gene therapies. Automation has been shown to increase the final product's efficiency, consistency and quality, including cell and gene therapy manufacturing.

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