“Platform” has become one of the most frequently used words in advanced therapies.
But what exactly does it mean — and could platform approaches genuinely transform a field historically characterised by highly individualised products and processes?
Esteve Trias began by challenging the terminology itself.
A platform can mean many things. It might describe reusable manufacturing technology, a processing methodology, a diagnostic system or even an organisational structure connecting hospitals and research centres.
At its core, however, the concept has one important characteristic: something repeatable can be used across more than one product.
That repeatability could prove transformative.
Instead of rebuilding every component of development for every therapy, organisations could standardise elements that do not provide meaningful product differentiation and concentrate innovation where it genuinely adds value.
Trias discussed the potential for open technological platforms built around common standards. Once the quality, safety and risks associated with common elements are understood, developers can focus attention on what is unique about an individual therapy.
For investors, that could reduce risk. For developers, it could reduce duplicated work. For patients, it could ultimately improve efficiency and access.
But platformisation raises difficult ownership questions.
Emmanuelle Cameau highlighted one particularly important concern for companies using CDMO platforms: what happens if the relationship with the manufacturing partner changes and elements of the underlying platform intellectual property belong to the CDMO?
Jacob Smith acknowledged that platform strategies can shift a degree of ownership towards the manufacturing partner, but argued this can also bring significant advantages.
A specialist partner can develop deep expertise in the technology, support regulatory interactions and maintain a production framework that individual developers would otherwise have to create themselves.
The important issue is understanding the transfer and resilience strategy before problems arise.
Núria Gavaldà also warned against excessive customisation.
Academic researchers in particular may arrive with highly specific expectations about how their product must be manufactured. Some customisation will always be justified because certain aspects genuinely are product specific.
But not every difference creates value.
Building separate infrastructure and unique manufacturing processes for every therapy consumes enormous amounts of time and investment. Greater specialisation and shared capabilities could allow ecosystems to use resources more effectively.
Margot Pont went further, arguing that standardisation could actually unlock innovation rather than restrict it.
If small biotechnology companies do not need to reinvent established manufacturing steps, they can concentrate funding, people and expertise on the part of their technology that is truly novel.
That represents an important reversal of the common fear that standardisation means sacrificing creativity.
In reality, a well-designed platform may remove unnecessary technical variation so researchers can see meaningful biological differences more clearly.
This is especially important in advanced therapies, where patient-specific starting material and autologous products can already introduce substantial heterogeneity.
Standardising the components that can be standardised could reduce background noise and make data easier to interpret, particularly in small early-stage trials.
The panel was not arguing that every advanced therapy should become identical.
The distinction is between valuable difference and unnecessary difference.
Advanced therapy development still requires innovation. But the industry increasingly has enough accumulated manufacturing experience to ask whether every process really needs to be rebuilt from scratch.
Platforms may therefore represent more than a manufacturing strategy.
They could become a mechanism for redistributing innovation.
Standardise what is already understood. Share what does not need to be proprietary. Invest resources where genuine scientific differentiation exists.
If the sector can achieve that balance, platform approaches could help developers produce more therapies using the same finite pool of expertise, infrastructure and capital — while potentially bringing those therapies to patients faster.
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