Working for a mature form of genomic medicines

In a new episode of the pharmaphorum podcast, Rahul Kakkar, CEO of gene editing company Tome, speaks with web editor Nicole Raleigh about programmable genomic integration (PGI) technology.

Defining the way that medicines are created for patients, Kakkar identifies three horizons in the industry: from the late 1800s with the rise of synthetic chemistry and small molecules, to the second horizon of the ability to clone DNA and the biologics industry, to recent nucleotide based therapeutics, and the upcoming fourth horizon, wherein Tome sits, defining genomic medicines on a similar level to the past few centuries’ developments.

Ethical implications exist, however, and manipulating the code of life requires such technologies to be developed within a highly regulated framework.

With the rise of CRISPR technologies, DNA can be edited, but on small levels. Most genes are not a letter or two big, though – there are thousands and thousands of base pairs. This is where PGI comes in, permitting insertion of DNA into the genome on a large level, with complete control, direction, and high efficiency.

At the end of the day, however, why should a patient care if you’re not delivering a technology that can be accessed? Without rose-tinted glasses on, Kakkar also addresses this and other cost-related issues when it comes to the potential to cure both common and rare diseases with integrative gene therapies and truly novel cell therapies, enabled by such technology as Tome’s.

You can listen to episode 134a of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer, or find it - and subscribe to the rest of the series - in iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Podbean.