Cell & Gene: The Podcast

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On episode 139, Host Erin Harris talks to Jonathan Rigby, President and CEO of Sernova (and proposed CEO of BetaNova) and Will Rust, Ph.D., President and CEO of Seraxis (and proposed President and CSO of BetaNova). Sernova and Seraxis are coming together to form BetaNova, combining Sernova’s implantable Cell Pouch with Seraxis’ stem cell-derived pancreatic islet cells in an effort to develop a functional cell therapy for people living with Type 1 diabetes (T1D). They discuss the rationale behind the merger, the challenges of replacing insulin-producing cells at scale, and the strategies BetaNova is pursuing to address immune suppression and autoimmune rejection. They also discuss the company’s SRO2 and gene-edited SRO3 programs, the planned clinical path, and how the combined platform could advance the goal of a functional cure for T1D. 
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In episode 138 of Cell & Gene: The Podcast, EA Weeks, J.D., Ph.D., Counsel at Troutman Pepper Locke talks to Host Erin Harris about the deal terms that matter most in CGT, including IP ownership, manufacturing capacity, CMC milestones, data rights, tech transfer, and more. They also discuss planning for what happens when a partnership does not go as expected.
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In episode 137 of Cell & Gene: The Podcast, Host Erin Harris talks with Sylke Poehling, Ph.D., SVP and Global Head: Therapeutic Modalities, pRED; Roche Gene Therapy Center of Excellence about how the company selects the optimal modality by starting with disease biology. Dr. Poehling explains how an integrated Center of Excellence brings together discovery, safety, manufacturing, and development expertise to reduce technical risk and accelerate progress. She outlines where AI is already creating value versus where caution is warranted. She also explains why genomic medicines will become mainstream when, for common diseases, physicians can offer them as routine options and patients can choose them with confidence. 
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On episode 136 of Cell & Gene: The Podcast, Host Erin Harris welcomes back Dr. Panteli Theocharous, FIBMS, M.S., Ph.D., FRCPath to discuss why autoimmune CAR T is moving rapidly from an emerging concept toward a potentially transformative treatment approach. They talk about the very different benefit-risk calculus in autoimmune disease compared with oncology, the patient and caregiver burden of conditioning, apheresis and long-term monitoring, and the need to rethink clinical trial endpoints around meaningful outcomes. They explore the potential of in vivo CAR T and circular RNA to eliminate some of the biggest barriers in the current treatment pathway, while discussing the scientific and durability questions that remain.
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In Episode 135 of Cell & Gene: The Podcast, Host Erin Harris talks to Sonal Gupta, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer of CoRegen, about the company's novel approach to treating solid tumors by engineering regulatory T cells (Tregs) rather than conventional effector immune cells. Dr. Gupta explains how CoRegen's investigational cell therapy, CRG150, targets the upstream regulator SRC3 to simultaneously influence multiple immune checkpoint pathways. She also discusses the scientific rationale behind the platform, the transition into first-in-human clinical studies, the biomarkers and translational questions the company hopes to answer, and why manufacturing, CDMO selection, and chain-of-identity capabilities are foundational to the future success of autologous cell therapies.
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