SCB Conducts Global Outreach at the World Advanced Therapies and Regenerative Medicine Congress

July 8, 2019 — As part of SCB’s mission to engage and educate on a global scale, Senior Technical Program Manager Dawn Henke, President Richard McFarland, and Board of Directors member Sven Kili presented at this year’s World Advanced Therapies and Regenerative Medicine Congress in London on May 15–17, 2019. One of the largest annual gatherings of stakeholders in the international regenerative medicine community, the event drew more than 1,000 stakeholders from biopharmaceutical companies, academia, and international regulatory bodies. The conference provided an extraordinary opportunity for SCB to educate the community about standards and invite their participation in standards development.

Continuing our series of targeted stakeholder workshops on needed standards, we held a pre-conference session for cell therapy sector stakeholders and met with individual SCB stakeholders involved in standards working groups. This workshop provided an overview of the cell therapy standards landscape and gave participants an opportunity to weigh in on needed standards in the sector, offering a jumping-off point for productive discussions on how to move the highest priority standards forward. The more than 60 attendees rated cell therapy standards by their impact and urgency, providing valuable input that will be incorporated into the Community Perspectives: Needed Standards in Regenerative Medicine report. Participants also provided input on two ISO standards under development (Cell Characterization and Framework for Use and Validation of Rapid Microbial Testing Methods).

Workshop participants were engaged in and energized by the discussion, with four participants—including a European government agency—approaching SCB to discuss potential future partnerships. As SCB moves into a new phase of operations under the leadership of our new executive committee officers, this response represents great progress in our mission to expand our global outreach.

We have already seen the evolution of the regenerative medicine standards community as more stakeholders recognize the potential for standards to positively transform their work. As we continue to forge new international ties and help to spark crucial discussions on standards among different stakeholder groups, we are excited to see what additional developments these new collaborations will bring.