Innovation in Regenerative Medicine
Three questions, three answers, this time by Dr. Patrick Bussfeld, MD (VP, Head Medical Affairs, Cell & Gene Therapies + Ophthalmology) from Bayer's Pharmaceuticals Divisions.
How are you helping to make healthy aging possible?
For decades, many diseases have been labelled as incurable, meaning medicine could not provide an answer beyond addressing symptoms. The Bio Revolution is a paradigm shift for patients and new approaches in cell and gene therapy could potentially lead to far more targeted, personalized treatment. We may find a way to finally cure age-related diseases that we once thought were incurable, such as Parkinson’s Disease.
What are the biggest challenges to be overcome?
Still one of the main challenges in treating and potentially even curing rare diseases is finding the right patients. With regenerative medicines we often talk about rare diseases and patient population are naturally rather small. And due to the more complex delivery it can be really challenging to bring together the patient and the study center. Therefore, a close collaboration with patients associations and many other stakeholders will continue to play a critical role.
How can we effectively decode aging?
Breakthrough insights around new therapies will increasingly allow us to better understand the human genome and thus may provide options for age-related conditions considered incurable or where the current standard of care only addresses symptoms to different degrees. It will be important to create broad understanding with all stakeholders about the opportunities and the potential of regenerative medicine, such as cell and gene therapies. Only then they have the chance to become an integral part of future healthcare.
