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Panteli Theocharous

Panteli Theocharous

Dr. Panteli Theocharous, PhD, FRCPath, is Chief Therapeutics & Clinical Strategy Officer and President of Europe at Worldwide Clinical Trials, and a cell and gene therapy executive focused on CAR T immunotherapy.

Aug 27, 2026

12:19
Talk to us a little bit about the bottlenecks for autoimmune indications and what they might be and why.
12:27
Yeah.
12:27
I, I-- you know, again, I, I think the, you know, as, as we sort of discussed, you know, last time round in terms of, you know, the patient journey, the patient experience, I think referral and screening remain, in my mind, the most underappreciated bottleneck.
12:43
So rheumatology, neurology, nephrology have not built two decades of referral infrastructure with certified cell therapy centers that oncology has.
12:56
So I think closing that gap is a shared obligation across sponsors, CROs, such as worldwide clinical trials and referring physicians, and it requires deliberate investment in clinical education, not passive diffusion of awareness, I would say.
13:13
From a development perspective, the development I direct listeners to, because I think it's the one most likely to re-- sort of almost kind of restructure this entire bottle-bottleneck is in vivo CAR T generation.
13:27
So-- And even more specifically, the shift toward things like circular RNA as the delivery payload.

11 MINS LATER

24:13
Um, looking ahead, what do you think autoimmune CAR T could teach the broader cell and gene therapy field about building therapies that are, you know, not only clinically effective, like you said, but also operationally work-workable and really genuinely patient-friendly, you know, around that real support system for the, for the pa- for the patient?

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