CAR-T therapy has revolutionized blood cancer treatment, but access remains limited worldwide. In an exclusive interview with Medindia, Michael Kadan, COO of Vector BioMed, discusses why manufacturing, affordability, and infrastructure—not scientific discovery—may determine the future of cancer care.
Highlights
- The biggest challenge facing CAR-T therapy today is no longer scientific discovery, but delivering treatment at scale.
- Personalized cell therapies require new manufacturing models that move production closer to patients and healthcare providers.
- Expanding access, affordability, and infrastructure may determine the future impact of advanced cancer therapies worldwide.
Michael Kadan, PhD, MBA, serves as Chief Operating Officer of Vector BioMed. His work focuses on advancing cell and gene therapy manufacturing solutions aimed at improving global access to next-generation treatments such as CAR-T therapy.
CAR-T therapy has transformed the treatment of certain blood cancers, yet millions of eligible patients remain beyond its reach. In an exclusive conversation with Medindia, Michael Kadan, PhD, MBA, Chief Operating Officer of Vector BioMed, explains why the future of advanced medicine depends less on discovering new therapies than on making existing ones accessible.
The World’s Most Advanced Cancer Therapies Already Exist. The Challenge Is Delivering Them.
Somewhere today, a patient diagnosed with an aggressive blood cancer may qualify for one of the most sophisticated treatments modern medicine has ever developed.
The science exists. The technology exists and the clinical expertise too exists.
However, for countless patients around the world, that therapy remains inaccessible, not because researchers failed to develop it, but because healthcare systems struggle to manufacture, deliver, and afford it.
This paradox defines one of the most important challenges in modern oncology.
For decades, the battle against cancer was driven by scientific discovery. Researchers worked to identify new targets, engineer innovative therapies, and improve survival outcomes. Today, however, another challenge has emerged: ensuring that these breakthroughs reach the people who need them.
In an exclusive interview with Medindia, Michael Kadan argues that the next revolution in cancer care may not come from another laboratory discovery. Instead, it will come from fundamentally rethinking how advanced therapies are manufactured and delivered.
As he explains:
“We’re beyond the gee-whiz phenomenon of proving that it can be done. Now we’re squaring off with the challenge of how it can be done more broadly.”
That statement captures a defining shift in oncology. The question is no longer whether advanced therapies can work. The question is whether healthcare systems can make them available to everyone who could benefit.
When Scientific Success Creates a New Problem
CAR-T therapy has demonstrated remarkable potential in selected patients with blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma, particularly when conventional treatments have failed. Its success has generated enormous optimism among clinicians and researchers alike.
Ironically, that success has exposed another challenge.
While the therapy exists, access remains highly uneven across the world. At first glance, this appears to be a geographical problem, with availability differing from one region to another. But Kadan believes the underlying issue is the economics of the treatment.
According to him, low- and middle-income countries often lack access, while wealthier nations are better positioned to adopt these therapies because they possess the necessary infrastructure and resources.
The barrier, therefore, is not simply scientific. It is systemic.
The Invisible Barrier: Manufacturing
One of the most striking observations from the conversation concerns manufacturing itself.
Traditional pharmaceuticals are produced in centralized facilities, packaged, and distributed to patients around the world. That model has served medicine for decades because conventional drugs can be manufactured in large batches.
CAR-T therapy is fundamentally different.
It relies on personalized, gene-modified patient cells, making the conventional pharmaceutical manufacturing model difficult to apply.
Kadan describes the current situation in simple but memorable terms:
“We have been essentially trying to put a square peg into a round hole.”
Attempting to fit individualized therapies into a centralized manufacturing system creates logistical complexity, delays, and high costs.
In his view, the solution lies in distributed or point-of-care manufacturing, where advanced therapies can be produced closer to the clinical setting rather than relying solely on distant centralized facilities.
Such an approach could improve both accessibility and affordability.
Accessibility Begins with Awareness
Another consequence of limited infrastructure is that healthcare providers themselves may not routinely consider these therapies.
If advanced treatments are unavailable within local healthcare systems, physicians naturally cannot incorporate them into everyday clinical decision-making.
Kadan suggests that embedding the technology within healthcare communities makes it more visible and practical. When clinicians can access these therapies locally, they become part of routine treatment considerations rather than distant possibilities.
Accessibility, therefore, is not merely about logistics. It also shapes awareness and adoption.
Why India Could Play a Significant Role
Among the most encouraging aspects of the discussion was Kadan’s perspective on India.
Rather than viewing India simply as a future consumer of advanced therapies, he sees the country as possessing substantial clinical capability and expertise.
His assessment is clear:
“India has the knowledge and the clinical capability to deliver these therapies.”
The missing element, he argues, is not talent but turnkey solutions that simplify manufacturing processes and workflows, allowing healthcare institutions to implement these therapies more practically and affordably.
He points to work involving the Muni Seva Ashram initiative as an example of placing technology directly into local healthcare settings and enabling providers to develop independent capability.
This approach reflects a broader philosophy: building capacity rather than simply supplying products.
Set up Cost Is More Than the Price of Therapy
Discussions about CAR-T therapy often focus on its high price. Kadan argues that the economics are more complex.
The set up costs include establishing infrastructure, implementing manufacturing capabilities, obtaining critical reagents such as viral vectors, and maintaining sophisticated workflows.
Reducing patient costs therefore requires redesigning the entire ecosystem rather than lowering the price of a single component.
Simplified manufacturing processes can lower infrastructure costs, which may ultimately reduce the financial burden on patients and healthcare institutions alike.
Affordability is interconnected with accessibility. Neither can be solved in isolation.
Regulation and the Need for Proof
Introducing new models of care inevitably raises regulatory questions.
Kadan acknowledges that gaining acceptance from policymakers is challenging, including in India. However, he believes successful pilot projects can create momentum.
Once healthcare systems witness patients being treated successfully, regulators may become more willing to adopt flexible approaches that maintain safety while enabling broader implementation. He also notes evolving perspectives within the U.S. FDA regarding advanced therapies and process control.
Innovation, in this context, requires both scientific and regulatory evolution.
AI Will Expand the Horizon
Looking ahead, Kadan believes artificial intelligence will play an important role in identifying new therapeutic targets.
While CAR-T therapy has shown particular effectiveness in hematological malignancies, research is expanding into solid tumors, autoimmune diseases, and even HIV-related applications. AI can accelerate target discovery and support the development of future immunotherapy approaches.
Technology, therefore, will continue to advance.
But discovery alone will not solve the accessibility challenge.
The Next Revolution
Medicine has spent decades learning how to fight cancer. The next challenge is ensuring that the fight reaches every patient and there is universal access to these treatment methods.
Scientific discovery has brought humanity to the threshold of a new era. Whether that promise becomes reality will depend not only on biology, but on manufacturing, infrastructure, affordability, and access.
As Kadan’s insights suggest, the next revolution in cancer care may not happen inside a laboratory.
It may happen inside a manufacturing facility.
