As I contemplate the future landscape of this cell and gene-based medicine industry and how best it can be navigated, I am always less certain of precisely what the future holds in terms of specifics and increasingly certain of the calculus for success.
Our industry can look to any number of milestones as poignant examples. None of us knows what the future holds for the many recently-executed and pending product approvals, mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, and investments in and around this space, but we do know that the world as we see it today will not be the world as we experience it tomorrow. And, as such, the calculus involves the strength of our relationships in working together over the years to face the challenges and achieve collective successes. We thoughtfully measure and take from them key indicators and messages that are being sent, make the adjustments we need to make, and build a relevant and sustainable future - together. This is the nature of innovation.
The responsibility of the leaders of the many developers within and providers to this industry set the tone for this innovation and form the strength of bonds that will allow us to together make the future. They take advice and counsel from our teams, foster environments in our organizations that encourage innovation at a grassroots level, and these teams run with the accountability of putting form to the output of the collaborations. Leaders must stay vigilant that the outputs of this work are appropriate to the scale of the great challenges and exciting opportunities that this industry presents us with and through this work the teams are developing their relationships as they grow to be the leaders of tomorrow. Accordingly, success in our business together, accompanied by transparency and openness, and ultimately serving the vision of a world in which transformative gene and cell-based therapeutics are accessible to all, describe the only things that matter in the long run.
A Year in Review
While ultimately a calendar year is an arbitrary marker of time, it does remind us of a need to periodically pause and take stock of what has been accomplished, even if the successes don't pause for us (and precisely to this point congratulations are in order to Spark Therapeutics for receiving FDA approval for Luxturna gene therapy - another first in the field!). In my role as Chairman of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM), I will present, along with Janet Lynch Lambert (ARM’s CEO), the annual Cell & Gene Therapies State of the Industry Briefing on Monday, January 8 in San Francisco, California. If you have not already done so, I welcome you to RSVP and join us for this presentation – an excellent time to look back at the year past and ahead at the year to come through our industry update and panel discussions with leaders in CARs, other cell-based immunotherapies, and gene therapy.
To our employees, the finest professionals in the regenerative medicine industry, thank you for your dedication, excellence and professionalism that you bring to your work. We are a service business, dedicated to doing our part to assist our clients as they aim to achieve commercial success in delivering their therapies to our shared end user, the patient. Without you, and without the tangibles and intangibles that you bring to this mission, we would be unable to play our part in this amazing story.
To our clients, I thank you for the trust you have placed in PCT services. We look forward to continuing our work together, continually innovating to improve the quality of our relationships and value to each other, all of which benefits the patients so badly in need of our help.
To those who are not yet our clients, it is my deepest hope that 2018 will bring opportunities for us at Hitachi Chemical Advanced Therapeutics (HCATS) to develop, sell and deliver the highest-quality, most scalable, innovative, reliable, and cost-efficient manufacturing platforms and services through PCT cell therapy services to advance the commercialization of your cell and gene-based therapies.
Happy holidays and best wishes for success in 2018!
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.
