The Long Run with Luke Timmerman Ep184: Jen Adair on Affordable, Accessible Gene & Cell Therapies
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Aug 28, 2025 Jen Adair, a leading professor at the Horae Gene Therapy Center, dives into the world of affordable gene and cell therapies. She shares her inspiring journey of resilience, overcoming personal challenges to champion healthcare equity. The discussion highlights the innovative approaches needed to make therapies more accessible, especially for underserved communities. Adair also emphasizes the significance of regional manufacturing in enhancing healthcare access globally, and the importance of collaboration and transparency in the research process to address systemic disparities.
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Rapid IND Success And Early Clinical Win
- Jen moved to Fred Hutch to lead an IND for blood stem cell gene therapy and cleared the FDA in six months.
- The first patient received nine chemo cycles and lived six and a half years, giving powerful early clinical signal.
Geography And Genomes Matter For Access
- Jen realized high-burden diseases like HIV and sickle cell live mainly in low-resource regions, but therapies are developed in wealthy countries.
- This mismatch demands including local scientists and genomes to make therapies globally effective.
Building A Benchtop Manufacturing Platform
- Jen built an automated 'gene therapy in a box' using a Miltenyi device to simplify stem cell manufacturing and published the process in 2016.
- The system improved purification and enabled semi-automated lentiviral modification at the point of care.