Recently, COVID-19 shined a light on the existing frailties and resilience of the cell and gene therapy (CGT) ecosystem. Shifting priorities, delayed clinical trials, lab closures and heightened risks for immunocompromised patients threatened the research, development, manufacturing and delivery of CGTs. As we explore in our report, How collaboration will strengthen the future of cell and gene therapies (pdf), we invite the CGT industry to look at collaboration and data sharing in unprecedented and forward-leaning ways.
As clinical science continues to deliver on the promise of CGTs, how can therapies be made available and affordable at scale? If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that this can only be accomplished through an ecosystem of stakeholders working together – patients, health care providers, health services companies, insurers, payers and the biopharmaceutical industry.
As Orlando Serani, Program Lead, Advanced Cellular Therapies Supply Chain at Johnson & Johnson, put it during a recent OCTS Cell Therapy Summit panel discussion hosted by EY, “We need to collaborate at the speed of science.” For CGT, this translates into using the power of data and technology to enable an unprecedented level of cooperation, a willingness to share information and a high degree of trust – in other words, a recipe for resiliency that will serve patients and the industry now, next and beyond.
EY expects the CGT global market to grow exponentially faster than the total pharmaceutical global market, from an estimated US$3 billion annually in 2021 to an estimated US$50 billion annually in 2027. The more than 2,600 CGT clinical trials signal a wave of potential product approvals between 2022 and 2027.
To date, CGT companies have continued to raise significant financing. The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM) Global Regenerative Medicine & Advanced Therapy Sector Report states that between January and June 2020, these companies raised an estimated US$10.7 billion globally, which is a 120% increase over last year, per Biomedtracker.