SCB and BioPhorum: Working Together to Progress Gene, Cell, and Regenerative Medicines
The Standards Coordinating Body for Gene, Cell, and Regenerative Medicines and Cell-Based Drug Discovery (SCB) and BioPhorum have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to bring the combined focus of the organizations together to continue to accelerate the rate of progress of the gene, cell, and regenerative medicine community. This agreement underscores the important role that industry best practices and standards play in accelerating innovation and advancement in emerging therapies to bring solutions to patients faster.
By formalizing their relationship, BioPhorum and SCB aim to ensure that community-identified needs are prioritized, standards development lead times are compressed, and standards are adopted faster, thereby enhancing consistency across the industry.
“Working together in this manner will help both SCB and BioPhorum serve the cell and gene therapy field in a greater capacity,” said Dawn Henke, SCB’s Senior Scientific Program Manager. “SCB is thrilled to work together [with BioPhorum] to help solve common challenges across the community.”
Why This Relationship Matters
Since 2018, the resources created by SCB have become canonical—specifically, the Regenerative Medicine Standards Landscape report and the Community Perspectives: Needed Standards in Regenerative Medicine report. Recently, these two resources were consolidated into the interactive and regularly updated SCB Regenerative Medicine Standards Portal, a central place for the community to find and engage with standards. Additionally, SCB is actively developing standards implementation courses to guide start-ups and industry through the use of specific standards.
Currently, SCB coordinates nearly 900 subject matter experts within its 15+ working groups. The expertise within BioPhorum, paired with the coordination efforts of SCB, will help both organizations in their missions to accelerate the availability and quality of novel advanced and regenerative medicine therapies.
“We are delighted that BioPhorum and SCB have agreed to move forward in this way,” said Louise Bennett, BioPhorum Cell & Gene Therapy Lead. “Combining our expertise, capabilities and strengths to accelerate standards development and adoption will ultimately bring medicines to patients faster, which is everyone’s goal.”
What BioPhorum Brings to the Table
BioPhorum is a globally recognized biopharmaceutical industry collaboration focusing on accelerating the pace of advancement and innovation, for the benefit of all. Since its inception in 2004, BioPhorum has become the open and trusted environment where senior leaders of the biopharmaceutical industry come together to openly share and discuss the emerging patient-focused trends and healthcare challenges facing their industry.
Within the cell and gene environment, there are many challenges across the cell and gene therapy (CGT) lifecycle, and the industry is continually developing as expertise and knowledge grow. BioPhorum Cell & Gene Therapy, together with its members, has developed a program of collaboration to address some of these key challenges bringing alignment on various aspects of CGT development and manufacturing to drive innovation and standardization across the industry. Working with SCB will continue to support this goal.