While cell therapy has great potential to overcome unmet medical needs in a wide range of disease areas, it remains in its infancy in medical systems globally and is currently only being used to treat a small number of diseases. These two factors underlie Astellas’ involvement in cell therapy. Many avenues require exploration, including how the science of cell therapy will progress and how we can help patients for whom no treatment options exist.
Over the past few years, Astellas has acquired and developed technologies to build a broad cell therapy-related portfolio. In the research and development of cell therapy, an area that is attracting global attention and being undertaken by many companies and research institutions, Astellas is making steady progress toward practical application. Our approach centers on the use of differentiated cells derived from allogeneic pluripotent stem cells because of their potential to be mass-produced as off-the-shelf products and their suitability for practical use. We believe this approach will allow us to provide treatment options more rapidly than using autologous pluripotent stem cells and meet a wider range of unmet medical needs. To do this, however, we will need to overcome important challenges, one of which is the fact that differentiated cells derived from allogeneic pluripotent stem cells are susceptible to immune rejection. Other challenges are also expected as the cell therapy manufacturing-associated value chain moves toward mass production.
We envision that cell therapy will become a reality by around 2030, with many patients benefitting through expansion to a wider range of target diseases. In this session, I will introduce Astellas' initiatives for cell therapy.