Jacques Galipeau, MD, on Highlights from ISCT 2024’s Presidential Plenary
The Don and Marilyn Anderson Professor of Oncology at University of Wisconsin – Madison shared highlights from the discussion.
“I shared the kickoff plenary of the ISCT, which is branded as La Présidentielle. The whole idea is to bring in leaders of sister societies to come and speak to us about what's the mission and vision, for us to have an understanding of the broader ecosystem of cell and gene therapy, especially for knowledge-based societies like ours... there is sort of a common theme in Europe, the UK, the US, that there are so called deserts where there are commercially approved products but eligible patients, especially if they live in rural areas and are of modest means, even though they’re eligible to receive the treatment, don't receive it. How do you tackle that?”
The presidential plenary of the International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy (ISCT) 2024 Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, from May 29 - June 1, brought together leaders of sister scholarly societies, including Anna Sureda, MD, PhD, president of European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation; Amander Clark, PhD, president, International Society for Stem Cell Research; and Corey Cutler, MD, MPH, FRCP(C), president, American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, with Jacques Galipeau, MD, president, ISCT, chairing the session, to discuss the current state of development with cell and gene therapies and challenges that the process faces, within each country and internationally.
CGTLive® spoke with Galipeau to learn more about the plenary and the highlights discussed between the speakers. He shared the different perspectives that each speaker brought to the discussion, with Sureda speaking about the state of development in Spain with the European Medicines Agency. One challenge, Galipeau noted, was relevant regardless of country, and that is tackling the problem of “deserts” in the treatment landscape.
