Where gene & cell therapy go next — a BioCentury podcast

Evotec’s Bernd Mühlenweg on the promise of regenerative medicine

It’s been a tough year for cell and gene therapy — patient deaths, high-profile companies pulling out of the space, and sour investment sentiment. But the field has had some promising readouts in the clinic recently, and it continues to mature, showing steady progress despite challenging market conditions. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, Evotec’s Bernd Mühlenweg joins BioCentury’s analysts to give his view of the field and offer takeaways from this month’s Cell & Gene Meeting on the Mesa in Phoenix.

Mühlenweg, SVP, global head of business development cell therapy at podcast sponsor Evotec SE (Xetra:EVT; NASDAQ:EVO), said that indications with higher prevalence, such as wet age-related macular degeneration, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and Type I diabetes are “entering the spotlight,” alongside increasing activity in autoimmune diseases. 

Turning to induced pluripotent stem cells, where immunosuppressants remain a challenge, Mühlenweg said the field is moving toward immuno-shielded iPSC lines to enable long-term function without systemic immune suppression. 

“In the allogeneic space where you can work with cloaking technologies, so to shield the cells from immunosuppression, that’s an approach that will, [in] the long run, revolutionize this field by allowing really tissue regenerative approaches with long-term durable engraftment of the cells,” he said. 

Mühlenweg also discusses the regulatory environment, investors’ perspective and manufacturing and supply chain.