WHAT IS BCAR?
Blood and Cells Advocacy Roster
Providing Joint Voice for the Blood Industry.
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New advocacy group aims to advance pace of change for patient access to cell and gene therapies and blood therapies
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BCAR to host a roundtable discussion on how the blood industry could function as a ‘network of networks’ to solve some of the CGT industry challenges at Phacilitate’s Advanced Therapies Week in January 2025
FOUNDERS / MEMBERS
THE IMPORTANCE OF BLOOD
The Blood and Cells Advocacy Roster (BCAR), an industry consortium of blood therapy and cell and gene therapy starting materials stakeholders, launches today to function as a think-tank plus speaker advocacy group. The international organization aims to drive the narrative on the importance of the established blood industry, particularly to help improve patient access to advanced therapies. BCAR will collaboratively propose solutions to tackle the complex challenges that could otherwise throttle development and commercial availability of life-saving cell and gene therapies.
Blood is recognized by the World Health Organization as an essential medicine. The blood industry’s infrastructure has been relied on for decades to manufacture and deliver blood-based therapies like transfusion and red blood cell exchange. These are safe, accepted clinical approaches to treat many diseases and conditions. More recently, the emergence of cell and gene therapies (CGTs) – often-curative treatments for dangerous diseases like late-stage blood cancers – has expanded the widespread reliance on blood systems, as a means of providing sources for starting materials. But the biopharma industry has been racing to keep up with demand, and struggling to manufacture them affordably, even while new therapies continue to reach the market for more diseases.
