Working With the Community to Improve Patient Access to Trials, Therapies
Rob Richards, administrative director, cell therapy and transplant, University of Pennsylvania, discussed improving reach of gene therapy trials and therapies.
“Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration... academic centers, pharma, payers think that they all understand it, but we don't understand beyond our sphere that well and that's important because the delivery systems for selling gene therapy are significantly different than they are in conventional treatments. Decanting therapies to community centers is important, but they have to be at the same standard that we are.”
Rob Richards, the administrative director of cell therapy and transplant at University of Pennsylvania, participated in the discussion on Improving Patient Participation in clinical trials/training programs to improve patient access at the 7th Annual CAR-TCR Summit 2022, held September 19-22 in Boston, Massachusetts.
CGTLive spoke with Richards to learn more about the discussion focused on strategies for improving patients access and clinical trial participation. An important piece of the puzzle, Richards discussed, is collaboration between academics, pharmaceutical companies, and payers. He discussed how academic centers can help develop other community centers to be able to host clinical trials, boost trial participation, and improve access to gene and cell therapies. He also touched on unique challenges with clinical trials evaluating cell and gene therapies compared with trials assessing traditional drugs, including therapy delivery.
Click here to watch more coverage of the 7th Annual CAR-TCR Summit 2022.
