Herd Mentality, Cell Therapy, and Pharma’s Future

What we asked: “Looking ahead to the next 5–10 years, what will be the key disruptors and/or what can be improved upon in the pharma industry?”

Response from: Hamish Ryder, CEO, Therapeutic Innovation, Cancer Research Horizons

“To truly revolutionize healthcare, the industry needs to move away from the herd mentality that favours the discovery and development of drugs in established areas. We need to rebalance our resources towards novel targets.

“Investing predominantly in known mechanisms – exemplified by the many anti-PD1s in development and the current clustering around GLP1 – creates head-to-head competition, drives down margins, and minimizes the potential for breakthroughs. The number of drug approvals in recent years may have increased, but that is not matched by improved performance for the pharmaceutical sector.

“Industry must be bolder about engaging with breaking science, and act on it sooner, either through direct interaction with academia or by collaborating with partners that operate in novel spaces. Regulatory agencies must go further to smooth the path for new approaches and first-in-class therapies. Breakthrough therapies and those that target smaller patient populations need additional incentives, such as patent term extensions, to encourage true innovation.

“Technological advances offer so much potential that we will not meet if the sector maintains this herd mentality. In an era of the coming of age of AI, novel therapeutic sub-modalities, and a deeper characterization of disease, incremental improvements in patient outcomes should no longer be considered a satisfactory result from the biopharma industry. We need to be aiming for step-change breakthroughs in patient benefit. For that, we need to leave the herd behind.”

Response from: James Lim, CSO at Xcell Biosciences

“For all the excitement around cell therapies to treat cancer, the reality is that most cell therapies today are only effective for hematological malignancies. The greatest improvement for pharma would be translating the success of cell therapies to solid tumors, which make up the vast majority of cancers. This would be a game-changer for the industry, and a literal life-saver for patients.

“The fundamental reason cell therapies are stymied by solid tumors is their near-toxic microenvironment. Rife with immunosuppressive mechanisms, low oxygen levels, and high interstitial pressure, tumors thrive in an environment that’s hostile to most cells. Evaluations of therapeutic cells that have been delivered to solid tumors found them to be depleted and dysfunctional. Tumor infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, the only class of cell therapies currently approved for a solid tumor indication, has existed for decades, and yet the challenges of manufacturing these cells to dose while maintaining their potency has stymied progress.

“But there is hope. Mounting evidence suggests that growing cell therapies under conditions more like the tumor microenvironment can make them hardier. Metabolic conditioning with advanced incubators that allow users to fine-tune more parameters, including oxygen and pressure levels, can help acclimate cells, preparing them to survive in an environment that might otherwise kill them. This approach is at odds with the conventional wisdom that therapeutic cells should be grown in conditions that keep them as happy as possible in vitro. Yet it is supported by more and more studies showing that metabolic conditioning can lead to more potent and more abundant cell therapies. This new avenue could dramatically expand the use of cell therapies across a wide range of cancers.”

Read over 100 other views on the future of the pharma industry on our special web page.