Time To Teach Your Vectors An Etiquette Lesson

By Anna Rose Welch, Editorial & Community Director, Advancing RNA

In May, McKinsey published a report entitled, “Gene Therapy Innovation: Unlocking The Promise of Viral Vectors.” In the authors’ eyes, there are three things companies need to do to make the rosy predictions about gene therapy’s promising future a reality. What I found endlessly amusing is how these efforts can be likened to teaching your vectors an “etiquette lesson.” (Frasier, anyone?) 

We need to find ways to, 1.,) evade the immune system (i.e., avoid petty ‘cat fights’); 2.) deliver vectors in lower doses with greater cell-type specificity (i.e., ‘dress-for-success’); and 3.,) control transgene expression (i.e., say the right things to the right people at the right volume/pitch.)  

As McKinsey also outlines, there are five strategies companies are executing to accomplish these aforementioned goals — namely designing new capsids and cargo types, exploring vector engineering, implementing improved manufacturing processes, and establishing better pretreatment regimens.  

In a recent article, I waxed poetic on the commercialization pressures C&G companies are facing today, which culminated in the argument that staying the course for manufacturing professionals translates to embracing patience. Being part of the second wave of therapies to market could actually bode well on a variety of technical and manufacturing fronts. This McKinsey overview of the work to be done on the vector development side — which holds the key to greater patient access and safer, more specific, more reimbursable treatments — also spoke well to the aforementioned article’s emphasis on staying the course. 

In addition to being a creative disciplinarian on the vector front for the long-term, you will be challenged strategically in the near future to keep close (and level-headed) tabs on the scientific and technological innovations that could be promising future pursuits, acquisitions, or in-licensing opportunities. Though there are innovation-centric benefits to being a fast-follower, a healthy dose of realism is critical; it will take time for that innovation to earn its place on the market (at least preliminarily) after that first wave of approved gene therapies gains traction.  

But on the bright side, as this industry has demonstrated — even in its nascent stages — though there may be leading platforms today, the door is hardly closed for new and/or improved delivery technologies. You’ll likely be as heartened as I was by McKinsey’s views of the future of the gene therapy space; much like the broader biologics space, gene therapies will be privy to a “rapid-innovation cycle,” which ultimately will allow for greater market competition between products.