Category: <span>Cell & Gene Therapy</span>

Since the first gene therapy trials were conducted 25 years ago, there have been high expectations from the public, and much attention from investors, that previously incurable diseases would be cured by gene therapy. Still, despite numerous gene therapy clinical trials for many different indications, there are no approved gene therapy drugs in the United States. In 1999, one gene therapy patient died during clinical trials, the first ever. This highly publicized event led to heightened regulatory scrutiny over all such trials. Then in 2003 and 2005, three subjects developed leukemia as a direct consequence of gene therapy; one of them eventually passed away. The regulatory response stemming from these incidents led to greater regulatory oversight in gene therapy, as compared to other investigational drugs and biologics…

Cell & Gene Therapy Regulatory

The number of viral vectors designed for gene therapy applications in the cGMP pipeline is staggering. Similar in scope to the flurry of recombinant protein products of the 1980s and the monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) of the 1990s, viral vector-based products are surging from research labs and universities into contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs), ultimately destined for use in clinical trials. Unlike recombinant proteins and MAbs, both of which sometimes require grams of vialed final product to start Phase I studies, the amount of material required to move a viral vector-based product into clinical trials can be minute in comparison. Of all the viral vectors currently in clinical trials, more than 25% are based on adenovirus…

Cell & Gene Therapy Viral Vectors

With the advent of the first gene therapy product to market, the industry faces the challenge of mass-producing high-purity viral particles and plasmids. The concept of manufacturing therapeutic genes rather than therapeutic proteins as marketable products is still in its infancy. Although manufacturers of biopharmaceuticals have decades of experience in the purification of proteins, virus and plasmid products pose unique challenges that cannot be addressed without some modifications to traditional, protein-based approaches…

Biologics Production Cell & Gene Therapy Viral Vectors

Acute Renal Failure (ARF) is a severe inflammatory disease state often accompanied by multiple organ failure (MOF). ARF is precipitated by many factors such as blood loss, surgery, sepsis, toxins, trauma, and is most often linked to the loss of kidney tubule function. Proximal tubule cells are specifically injured in acute renal failure. Current therapies for ARF involve conventional kidney support with hemodialysis or hemofiltration. These therapies offer replacement of normal renal functions such as waste removal, fluid, and electrolyte balance, but they cannot provide vital endocrinological and metabolic functions of a healthy kidney. Despite advances in synthetic materials and extracorporeal circuits for hemodialysis and hemofiltration, ARF is associated with a high mortality rate ranging between 55–70 percent…

Cell & Gene Therapy Risk Analysis and Management

A prerequisite for producing medicinal products is ensuring their quality and safety. This requires appropriately controlled and standardised manufacture and testing procedures that result in consistent potency, safety, and efficacy. Assuring the quality and safety of gene therapy products in particular presents a great challenge because they are cell-based, multi-gene products which include viral and therapeutic proteins as well as modified cells. Although more than 860 gene transfer clinical trials are in progress and the first gene therapy product is already on the market (in China), the development of reference materials for gene therapy products is at an early stage with only a few accessible reference materials. Standardisation of gene therapy products to ensure their quality and safety is clearly necessary and has become increasingly important. Standardisation and other issues specifically related to gene therapy products are discussed in this article…

Cell & Gene Therapy Viral Reference Materials

Ophthalmic disorders are a group of diseases with a rapidly increasing frequency associated with an increase in the aged population. Patients with potentially blinding diseases have become one of the largest segments of the healthcare field, with more than 50 million patients in the United States alone. Their sight is threatened by diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy (DR), glaucoma, or retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Until recently, there were essentially no effective treatment options to halt the progression of chronic, potentially blinding diseases. Biotechnological advances have resulted in the development of a variety of promising new protein factors that, if delivered to diseased cells of the retina, hold promise for treatment by interrupting or reversing the disease process…

Cell & Gene Therapy

Gene therapy is a promising medical technology that has the ability to treat inherited diseases. However, efficient and economical large-scale production of vectors is necessary to meet the potential patient demand. Several approaches have been evaluated for the mass production of retroviral vectors, including fixed-bed bioreactors, suspension cultures, and microcarrier cultures. In this article, we report on the use of a Cytopilot fluidized-bed bioreactor for the production of retroviral vectors from the human packaging cell line TEFLYRD…

Cell & Gene Therapy Viral Vectors

The United States Pharmacopeia (USP) is a 184-year-old organization that has been in the forefront of technology since its inception. From publishing a manual about how to prepare therapeutic potions, USP has evolved into a compendium of standards and information on manufactured pharmaceutical products, with more than 4,000 monographs covering drug substances and biologics, and their dosage forms, excipients, and nutritional supplements. It is not surprising that the USP initiative in cell and gene therapy and tissue engineering has closely followed the emergence of these technologies…

Cell & Gene Therapy Regulatory Risk Analysis and Management

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis, along with injuries such as stroke affect millions of individuals worldwide and costs healthcare systems billions of dollars each year in North America alone. The diseases result from the death of specific cell types within the central nervous system. Current treatment efforts have focused primarily on alleviating symptoms using pharmaceuticals. However, recent advances in our understanding of these conditions, coupled with advances in biology, genomics, transplantation, and biochemical engineering are making cell therapy (the transplantation of viable cells to replace dead cells) more attractive as a potential avenue of treatment…

Biologics Production Cell & Gene Therapy

Current in vivo gene therapy (GT) approaches are beginning to demonstrate significant clinical and safety limitations that may ultimately reduce their therapeutic utility. In particular, the potential for systemic toxicity due to the antigenicity of the gene transfer vector, the prospect of insertional mutagenesis/oncogenesis during gene transfer, and the possibility of germ line transfer of the transgene are issues raising concern. One promising alternative to gene therapy that mitigates these clinical and safety issues is gene-based cell therapy (GBCT), in which autologous cells are removed from a patient and modified ex vivo for a desired characteristic prior to reimplantation. By transferring the transgene ex vivo, many of the issues surrounding the in vivo use of the transfer vectors are reduced and issues surrounding germ line transfer can be practically eliminated…

Cell & Gene Therapy