Back to gene therapy: bringing the EU regulation into the future

The current European framework for advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), which also covers gene therapies, was established in 2007 at the dawn of the biotechnology era in the pharmaceutical sector. However, its inherent limitations have been revealed by the new frontiers enabled by the scientific and technological advances of the past few decades, particularly in the areas of innovative gene therapeutics (e.g., CRISPR/Cas9-RNA complexes), manufacturing technologies, and delivery systems. Here, we contribute to the scientific discussion on how to reduce regulatory uncertainty in the qualification of medicinal products with a different mechanism of action (e.g., editing the host genome or regulating gene expression), and on rationalizing regulatory support and incentives for the most complex therapies in terms of mechanism of action and manufacturing process.