"We anticipate India will adopt decentralised models for managing CGTs, ensuring closer proximity between patients and treatment facilities"

Cell and gene therapy (CGT) expert from Germany, Miltenyi Biotec has recently announced its entry into the Indian market to provide researchers, scientists and clinicians easier access to expertise, research, and manufacturing solutions.

- Amguth Raju

The company is well poised to enable local development and manufacturing in India to drive affordable and accessible CGTs by academia and industry for Indian as well as global patients. In conversation with BioSpectrum Asia, Dr Boris Stoffel, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Miltenyi Biotec, talks about the real challenges associated with the use of CGT, and the way forward. 

Could you elaborate on the narrative behind Miltenyi Biotec’s invention of the groundbreaking technology that has led to the development of new procedures for treating diseases through Cell and Gene Therapy? How was this achieved?

Miltenyi Biotec, being a private entity, stands as the pioneer in next-generation technology within the field of Cell and Gene Therapy (CGT). The significance of this technology persists even after 35 years, as it emerged in 1989 at a time when the concept of disruptive technology was still nascent. Looking back 35 years, it's evident that our innovation was disruptive because, at that time, only a handful of labs worldwide utilised large-scale cell sorters. Specialised operators were required to sort immune cells from blood, making it a cumbersome process.

The invention of MACS technology revolutionised this landscape by enabling every researcher to utilise a simple column and antibodies coupled with small microbeads in a magnetic field to separate cells within a short timeframe. This democratisation of technology meant that researchers were no longer reliant on expensive, specialised equipment available only in select labs. At that time, Germany, for instance, had only two such sorters, one of which was located at the Institute of Genetics of Immunology, where Stefan Miltenyi, the founder, was a student.