Sven Kili, ISCT 2022 Annual Meeting co-chair/Courtesy of YouTube
The cell and gene therapy space is growing up and spawning myriad scientific gatherings, including two on the immediate horizon. On May 16, the 25th annual meeting of the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT) will commence in Washington, DC. And this week in San Francisco, industry, investors, regulators, physicians and patients will convene at the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (ISCT)s annual conference the first to be held in person since 2019.
Sven Kili, CEO at Antion Biosciences and 2022 Annual Meeting co-chair told BioSpace that the conference will set the pace for the next 12 months in terms of the most intriguing technology, key investments and key moves.
We often talk jokingly, but it's actually quite serious, that this represents almost the G7 summit of cell and gene therapy, Kili said. Rather than being a place where partnerships and M&A activity is announced (though that may come after), ISCT is focused on really changing the landscape of the cell and gene therapy space.
A summit evokes the idea of key community leaders coming together to make important decisions, and the organizers of ISCT felt it important that every voice is at the table for every key discussion, as opposed to branching off into their own siloed manufacturing or cancer tracks.
At typical scientific meetings, You have a regulatory track and you have a manufacturing track and everyone toddles off to their own track where they sit in isolation and hear about the latest developments, Kili said. ISCT wanted to provide better educational value for its attendees. So, this years meeting will reflect the development pathway of a cell and gene therapy product.
When you develop a therapy, you sit down with a bunch of different people. You sit down with scientists, you sit down with clinicians, you sit down with patients; you might even have a commercial person and a regulatory person. You have a variety of people around the table," Kili said.
This years theme: Bench to Bedside to Benefit - Creating Value for Patients through CGT Translational Science, will integrate the full chorus of voices discussing four main topics: Innovation and R&D the cool new technology; translation into the clinic; late-stage clinical development; and launch and patient access.
Speaking of cool new technology, Geneva, Switzerland-based Antion will be presenting new data around its proprietary miCAR platform, which aims to overcome some of the current limitations in gene editing.
Gene editing, as incredible and as powerful as it is, has some major drawbacks when we try to make more than three or four changes to a cell. As we try to make more and more changes to cells, which we are going to need to do as we get into more complex tumors and solid tumors, gene editing really falls down, Kili said.
This is where Antion, which recently entered into a collaboration funding agreement with Allogene Therapeutics, comes in.
This miCAR platform allows us to silence up to six different genes and add a CAR or a TCR all in a single construct, in a single transduction step, he explained, adding that the technology enables Antion to create very highly modified cells that have very high efficiency and a very good recovery, all without exhausting the cells during the manufacturing process.
This week, Antion will present data that shows the functional silencing of six different genes with a CAR and the activation and activity of the chimeric antigen receptor.
Kili said to also anticipate announcements regarding technological advances in COVID-19 and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). Interest in each is understandably at a fever pitch. The second track will focus on overcoming some of the big challenges in early clinical work, such as patient enrollment and running remote clinical trials, while the third will look at the later stages of clinical development.
Its the fourth track, however, where Kili focused most of his thoughts.
This is kind of a coming of age for ISCT, he shared. ISCT, in the many years before, was focused on a lot of R&D work and clinical translation, but we've seen in the last few years more products come into the market and this is an area of creating really good launch excellence. How do you launch and provide therapies that are good value, that change patients lives, that make patients lives easier in the administration? All of these things are going to be critical to discuss.
On May 6, Kili will host a discussion entitled Are Cell & Gene Therapies a First World Only Luxury?
We sit in our first world countries, all very happy and we have access to many of these therapies. But what about patients in South America and Sub-Saharan Africa? What are we doing as an environment about making these therapies available to them? he asked. Kili has brought together panelists including the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine in South Africa, Caring Cross in the United States, Universidad de los Andes in Chile and Novartis.
Looking ahead to the next five-to-10 years, I think we're going to understand the pathophysiology and we're going to understand the cause of particularly cancers like solid tumors, but also some immunology diseases. We're going to understand them on a much better molecular level, Kili predicted. At the moment, we tend to go in, take a cancer and say, these cancer cells have got a little flag that says hello, I'm a CD19, so we say, let's arm a cell and chuck it in there. But we forget that there's an entire orchestra going on in inside that space, and then we wonder why sometimes it doesn't work.
This stronger molecular science will then translate into better understanding and better refinement of the technologies, the cell-based therapies that we're using, so our ability to penetrate and survive those cells in solid tumors in that tumor microenvironment, Kili continued.
He envisions the space making more progress in solid tumors, as well as a progression away from cancer and into immunotherapies, using cell and gene-modified cell therapies for immune conditions, such as diabetes and Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
In the manufacturing space, Kili said the key will be to learn how to usevectors better to create better in vivo therapies, be they gene-modified cell therapies or pure gene therapies. All of these aspects need to move forward, he said, to allow us to decrease the cost of goods for these therapies so that we can make them available to more people both in our very privileged first world, but also in low and middle-income countries.
In conclusion, Kili said, I think we're going to see a lot of very rapid changes and very rapid improvements.
ISCT kicks off Wednesday, May 4, with the excitement continuing through Saturday. BioSpace will have the highlights from both this conference andASGCT.
Excerpt from:
At ISCT This Week, Cell & Gene Therapy Grows Up - BioSpace
- Dosing paused in Pfizer DMD gene therapy trial after patient death - Muscular Dystrophy News - May 14th, 2024
- Astellas CEO Q&A (Part 1): There Is No Playbook on Cell and Gene Therapies - MedCity News - May 14th, 2024
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- Young participant in Pfizer's DMD gene therapy trial dies - Fierce Biotech - May 14th, 2024
- Boy Dosed with Pfizer DMD Gene Therapy Dies a Year after Phase II Trial - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News - May 14th, 2024
- Gene therapy trials treat inherited blindness and deafness - DW (English) - May 14th, 2024
- Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial - The Independent - May 14th, 2024
- beyond-the-lab-cell-and-gene-therapy - Drug Target Review - May 14th, 2024
- Child who was born deaf can now hear whispers and parents clapping for first time thanks to 'mind-blowing' gene therapy - New York Post - May 14th, 2024
- White Paper: Navigating the regulatory path of CRISPR-based therapeutics 13 May 2024 - SelectScience - May 14th, 2024
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- Deaf toddler playing piano and dancing after world-first gene therapy - The Telegraph - May 14th, 2024
- New gene therapy allows deaf child to hear DW 05/09/2024 - DW (English) - May 14th, 2024
- Our Mission at Voyager Therapeutics: Define the Future of Neurogenetic Medicines - BioSpace - May 14th, 2024
- Gene therapy provision would make life-saving treatment more accessible and equitable - Star Tribune - May 14th, 2024
- British girl's hearing restored in pioneering gene therapy trial - Sky News - May 14th, 2024
- ASGCT24: Translational Research Powering Potentially Transformative Therapies - BioSpace - May 14th, 2024
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- Krystal Biotech Inc (KRYS) Reports Strong Q4 and Full Year 2023 Financial Results - Yahoo Finance - February 27th, 2024
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- 10 gene therapy companies you should know about - Labiotech.eu - February 27th, 2024
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- Fetal surgery expert Tippi MacKenzie shifts to in-utero gene therapy - STAT - February 27th, 2024
- Therapeutic Solutions International Files Patent on Facilitating Effects of JadiCells on Gene Therapy Mediated Cell ... - Business Wire - February 27th, 2024
- CU Anschutz Set to Launch Gene Therapy Trials for Heart Disorder - University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus - February 27th, 2024
- ICH targets cell and gene therapies, real-world data as topics ripe for harmonization - Regulatory Focus - February 27th, 2024
- Encoded Therapeutics Announces UK CTA Approval for Dravet Syndrome Gene Therapy Candidate ETX101 - Business Wire - February 27th, 2024
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- Therapeutic Solutions International Files Patent on Facilitating Effects of JadiCells on Gene Therapy Mediated Cell ... - The Bakersfield Californian - February 27th, 2024
- Ring Therapeutics, a Flagship gene therapy startup, lays off 20% of staff - STAT - February 27th, 2024
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- Combatting HIV using gene therapy - Drug Target Review - February 27th, 2024
- NCDHHS working with federal government on increasing access to sickle cell disease treatment - WECT - February 27th, 2024
- Cell Therapy Weekly: FDA Approves First Cell Therapy For Solid Tumors - RegMedNet - February 27th, 2024
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- New sickle cell therapy uses gene editing at MUSC | Health | postandcourier.com - The Post and Courier - February 27th, 2024
- Long-term and real-world safety and efficacy of retroviral gene therapy for adenosine deaminase deficiency - Nature.com - February 18th, 2024
- Gene therapy, blood transfusions, stool monitoring: The Sydneysiders trying to escape death - Sydney Morning Herald - February 18th, 2024
- Not too late to repair: gene therapy improves advanced heart failure in animal model - Baylor College of Medicine | BCM - February 18th, 2024
- Direct Administration of CRISPR-Cas9: Tools for Cell and Gene Therapy - Forbes - February 18th, 2024
- Gene therapy's promise seen in its success for AADC deficiency - AADC News - February 18th, 2024
- First Patient Randomized in AskBio Phase II Gene Therapy Trial for Congestive Heart Failure Treatment - Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology - February 18th, 2024
- FDA to review expanded use of Sarepta Duchenne gene therapy - Yahoo Finance - February 18th, 2024
- How gene therapy can help treat a rare blood disorder - KUTV 2News - February 18th, 2024
- CRISPR gene therapy Casgevy secures approval in Europe - Pharmaceutical Technology - February 18th, 2024
- FDA Updates for the Week of Feb. 12, 2024: New Approvals, an Extended Review and Goal Dates Set - Managed Healthcare Executive - February 18th, 2024
- First Patient Randomized in AskBio Phase II Gene Therapy Trial for Congestive Heart Failure - Business Wire - February 18th, 2024
- Lisa Jarvis: A cure for some kinds of hearing loss? Gene therapies are getting closer - St. Paul Pioneer Press - February 18th, 2024
- Spinal Muscular Atrophy Market: Navigating Therapeutic Advances towards USD 5.6 Billion by 2034, with a CAGR of ... - Yahoo Finance - February 18th, 2024
- Crispr Therapeutics' Gene Therapy Wins EU Approval - TipRanks.com - TipRanks - February 18th, 2024
- Revolutionizing Gene Therapy: A Novel Technique for In Vivo CAR T Cells - Medriva - February 18th, 2024
- How Stella Vnook is 'infusing innovation' into cell therapies with Likarda's technology - BioPharma-Reporter.com - February 18th, 2024
- Using cancer's 'superpower' to boost T-cell therapies in mice - FierceBiotech - February 18th, 2024
- Parkinson's Disease Patient Identification and Education Will Need to Improve When New Disease Modifying ... - Yahoo Finance - February 18th, 2024
- CRISPR (CRSP) to Report Q4 Earnings: What's in the Cards? - Yahoo Finance - February 18th, 2024
- Gene Therapy: A Ray of Hope for Heart Failure Treatment | Health News - Medriva - February 18th, 2024
- Gene therapy trials restore hearing to children born deaf - The Hill - February 2nd, 2024
- Early Trial Success for Inherited Deafness Gene-Therapy - RegMedNet - February 2nd, 2024
- Sickle cell gene therapy first focus of Medicaid pay model - Modern Healthcare - February 2nd, 2024
- Beyond chemotherapy: Navigating the promise and perils of CAR-T therapy in pediatric cancer - BioPharma-Reporter.com - February 2nd, 2024
- Angiodema: Gene therapy blocks painful hereditary disorder - BBC - February 2nd, 2024
- FDA: Genome editing therapies may use accelerated approval pathway - Regulatory Focus - February 2nd, 2024
- CRISPR tech treats severe hereditary condition successfully - Interesting Engineering - February 2nd, 2024
- Gene Therapy Restores Hearing in Small Trial for Kids With Hereditary Deafness - Technology Networks - February 2nd, 2024
- Gene-based therapy may slow development of life-threatening heart condition - Medical Xpress - February 2nd, 2024
- Jaguar Gene Therapy Announces FDA Clearance of IND to Study JAG201 in a Genetic Form of Autism Spectrum ... - Business Wire - February 2nd, 2024
- Replacing the PKP2 gene prolongs survival in ARVC patients - Drug Target Review - February 2nd, 2024
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- Gene Therapy Restores Hearing in Children with Hereditary Deafness - The Hearing Review - February 2nd, 2024
- 2 Dutch among 10 "functionally cured" of hereditary swelling disease by new gene therapy - NL Times - February 2nd, 2024
- FDA publishes final industry guidance for CAR-T and gene therapies - PMLiVE - February 2nd, 2024
- Gene therapy cures hereditary deafness in two people - Advanced Science News - February 2nd, 2024
- Hearing Restored in Deaf Children in Gene Therapy Clinical Trial - Securities.io - February 2nd, 2024
- Vivet Therapeutics Receive 4.9 Million to Advance Development of Gene Therapy - European Pharmaceutical Manufacturer - February 2nd, 2024
- Adverum Biotechnologies will Host Webcast to Review LUNA Phase 2 Preliminary Efficacy and Safety Results on ... - GlobeNewswire - February 2nd, 2024
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- Experimental gene therapy allows kids with inherited deafness to hear - The Associated Press - January 25th, 2024