Catalent’s Dan Peizer (pictured), Vice President, Head of Marketing & Strategy, Pharma & Consumer Health, notes that the growing interest in cell and gene therapies (CGTs) is a result of their potential to treat rare and chronic conditions and forever change patients’ lives.
Looking to the future, he observes, the increasing demand for CGTs and their need for specialised manufacturing solutions will likely strain capacity … with 50% of executives anticipating constraints throughout the industry.
To meet demands and reduce timelines to first-in-human clinical evaluation, the development of platform processes (adeno-associated viral vectors) aims to increase efficiency and provide consistency in supply, all while assuring quality.
Cell and gene therapy developers and manufacturers must keep adopting flexible solutions and offering innovative ways of working to ensure that essential treatments reach patients.
Contract development and manufacturing organisations (CDMOs) that offer end-to-end supply chain management can serve CGT developers more holistically and accelerate drug production.
In addition to CGTs, the development of novel targeted protein degraders (TPDs) is also transforming small molecule therapies.
Tailored to remove specific proteins, TPDs can access targets that have been previously been deemed to be undruggable. Harnessing innovative developability toolkits to identify promising candidates and select the right formulation can accelerate timelines to clinic.
Selecting a CDMO partner with the adaptability to navigate complex global supply chains for CGTs or to manufacture complex molecules such as TPDs at a clinical trial and commercialisation scale can support major pharmaceutical developments.
Therefore, Dan concludes, CDMOs can continue to help bring innovative modalities to patients for years to come.