STAT December 18, 2019
I never thought I’d see the day when words like “process,” “scale,” and “automation” would make news in the biopharma industry. Yet as the race heats up to bring more first-of-their-kind gene therapies to market, breakthroughs in manufacturing are often the key — or break down the barrier — to delivering these therapies to patients.
In my career, which has largely focused on drug manufacturing, I’ve been lucky to be directly involved in the approval of six new medicines. My current work, as head of technical operations at Spark Therapeutics, is offering the biggest challenge: bringing Luxturna, the first gene therapy for a genetic disease, to patients and families in the U.S. Getting here has been no small task.
With...