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Patrick M Gailliot has had quite a career, but he has often followed the road less traveled by. After expanding the manufacturing network for Novartis’ commercial CAR-T cell therapy Kymriah, he left to apply his learnings at other companies that needed his help on their own journey to approval.
Patrick is now Sr. Director, Patient Operations at Abeona Therapeutics where he works to establish the scalable personalized logistics capabilities as the company advances its lead candidate—an autologous cell therapy for a rare pediatric dermatological disease.
We caught up with Patrick to talk to him about why his work gives him so much joy, preview his session at Advanced Therapies Week in Dallas, and explain the value he gets from the event.
What would you say have been some of your biggest career highlights to date?
The real highlights have been getting into the CAR-T market early on with Kymriah and globalizing a pediatric indication as the lead candidate, which was then followed by an adult indication. I managed the global launch program for the manufacturing organization to support the geographical expansion of access to this treatment. It was a pretty big moment for the industry. After that, CAR-T and gene therapy just really exploded.
Then, I moved to Kite Pharma to help expand their commercial CAR-T programs into Asia.
When I looked back at the challenges we overcame and the knowledge we obtained, I realized that the experience expanding access to these technologies can support smaller companies in overcoming challenges proactively or speeding up innovation. That’s when I went down a different path and started focusing more on smaller companies that don’t have the same understanding of the CAR-T market. I wanted to help them build the same programs and global teams that the bigger companies have. I used the knowledge and experience I’d gained to help them get through those tough stages of their journeys.
Now, I’m part of a smaller company working with many of the same renowned institutions in the US to build capabilities for autologous sample collection and then the surgical application of a finished product. It’s amazing to be able to work on this and see the impact we are having.
What will you be speaking about during your session at Advanced Therapies Week 2025?
My presentation is going to look at the topic of orchestration software strategies, the connection to systems, and how they fit together to establish digital programs at the right stages. This includes the teams and organizational support that enable them. I’ll also look at what benefits they offer and how founders or companies decide what’s best for them at each stage of your journey.
The part I’m going try to drive home is that founding companies and sponsors are trying to cure or drastically alter treatment pathways for diseases. This software helps you do that, but you have to figure out which solution is most important at which stage, and how do you make a decision or structure your decision-making process around it? For example, do I start with the manufacturing systems, inventory systems, or orchestration software?
You have 15 minutes to deliver your presentation. What kind of approach do you take to structuring your topic when you have a short amount of time?
I try to leave the attendees with the information and tools to take the conversation further rather than finish the conversation. People aren’t going to be able to come to a conclusion in those 15 minutes. These are million-dollar decisions made by founders and their leadership teams and they aren’t going to make that final decision in the room. But you can provide next steps and things to consider in their evaluations that can help them move through the process.
What are you looking forward to hearing about at Advanced Therapies Week and what sessions and tracks have caught your eye?
Patient considerations is definitely a topic I would jump on, especially the session involving the Emily Whitehead Foundation. I’ll try to go to the Innovation Summit to see some of the therapy manufacturing innovation startups and watch some of the Series A and Series B investment pitches at the Investment Summit. The therapeutic advances and commercialization tracks could also be interesting.
What do you think makes Advanced Therapies Week stand out?
I like the networking events at Advanced Therapies Week and how you structure those aspects of the conference. During the day, I can hit a few topics and make some connections with other experts in their field then follow up on some of the initial connections in social settings later in the event. This allows for more in depth connections on topics during the different events such as the welcome drinks or Dallas Night Out.
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Patrick will be speaking at the Orchestration and Sync’d Up Planning for Cell and Gene Therapy Value & Supply Chains session, which takes place on Tuesday 21 January 2025 1:15pm – 2:15pm. He will also be chairing The Patient Ferris Wheel – Centering the Patient in CGT Supply, which takes place on Wednesday 22 January 2025 11:00am – 12:00pm. See the agenda in full for more information.
