Gene therapy

And so it's two different truths that can both be, um, true, true at the same time.

So I wanted to start my first question of, if a cell and gene therapy company is coming to either one of you today, you know, looking for capital, what do they have to show you before the conversation goes anywhere at all? Which is-

Go ahead

...

Um, translation is important, and we really look at quality of asset, quality of platform, and quality of the team, and their ability to execute, and that's probably a good enough starting point for us.

So let me, um, sort of pile on there, 'cause absolutely I think he's, um, he's spot on.

Um, when I'm meeting with e- entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs who are looking to try and raise capital in the space of cell and gene therapy, um, I like to give them an, a- at least some guidance and put on some headlights.

Um, look, it's not the, the platform story I don't think sells anymore.

How do we improve our sleep, movement, sunlight, breathing, and taking care of your body every single day? But what's cool is how much further we're going to be going in the future.

We'll be talking gene therapy, radical life extension, longevity escape velocity, AI, digital twins, and some of the emerging technologies that James believes could completely change the way we think about aging.

It's not just about living longer.

It's about what makes life worth living.

And so let's talk about the things that are happening going forward now, like the more kind of creative, you know, the things that aren't doing breathwork at home, but where you might go to a doctor or treatments or special supplements.

What are you seeing as the cutting edge right now?

Well, I'm looking forward to the gene therapy field right now because I think like Dr.

Bill Andrews of Sierra Sciences has got a gene therapy, for example, that's been proven in the lab, all right? He's just waiting now for human trials.

And third, this is no longer confined to theoretical biology or animal testing.

This fundamental science is translating directly into human therapies right now, most notably by successfully, albeit partially, restoring sight to the blind through a combination of gene therapy and optic hardware.

It is the ultimate example of how basic curiosity-driven research can change the world in completely unpredictable ways.

It brings us right back to that opening image.

This is Professor Khaled Musallam.

I'm the group chief research officer and chief of cell and gene therapy and haematology and deputy CEO at Burjeel Cancer Institute, Burjeel Medical City in Abu Dhabi, and adjunct professor also in Khalifa University Abu Dhabi and Weill Cornell in New York.

Now, Fred, let's turn to you.

Yeah.

But then we stepped back again, so we started with a challenge.

We went to the whole, but then we said, "Is this whole reaching everybody?" So is it all these novel innovations since we're talking and starting the series with the challenge in certain zones, are they benefiting from all of these innovations? So that's where we started looking at the future-proofing thalassemia care.

When we go beyond these novel advances that might not be accessible to areas with the highest burden, whether we have something else to offer, should we be looking at other alternatives to improving the, the outcomes of patients? And the last paper features only that, um, in terms of repurposing drugs that have been showing a certain impact in, in certain regions, um, looking also at how can we democratize gene therapy.

And obviously the talk of the year or even the last five years is AI and artificial intelligence, so we wanted to also touch on that in terms of how can that also be a successful tool in terms of enabling management and diagnosis at scale in areas where they're needed the most.

But also these emerging technologies are just evolving so rapidly that I think new opportunities will keep on coming up.

We see this in the cell and gene therapy space as well, right? So We know that China has created some really nice pathways to accelerate the development of cell and gene therapy.

So these are all of these gene editing or CAR T therapies that are coming in, really curing diseases for which we had no other medications before.

So, yeah, this whole idea of personalized medicine is coming in now, which is really great.

And so a lot of things scientists have been able to do, which they probably wouldn't have been able to in other countries.

And so there's this tension, right? Do we do this really, really fast or do we slow down? But then what's the cost of slowing down as well?

Yeah, and since you brought up cell gene therapy, right? Again, we see similar things to what's happening in BCI today with CGT a few years ago.

So 2003 was when China had its first commercial deployment approval.