Last week, SAP hosted another exciting edition of the SAP Cell and Gene Therapy Orchestration (CGTO) Consortium in vibrant New York City. I vividly remember how the first such event, just two years ago, featured just my colleague Mandar Paralkar, me, and three customer participants. That’s why it was fantastic and heartwarming to witness the energy, curiosity, and collaborative spirit between the 80+ participants that filled the 52nd floor of our Hudson Yards office. As always, NYC, a city renowned for its diversity and dynamism, provided the perfect backdrop to bring together leaders from SAP, top life sciences companies, and our strategic partners for this important endeavor.

During two inspiring days, we dived deep into the heart of the CGT industry’s most pressing challenges and explored innovative solutions that are shaping the future. Our agenda was rich with insightful presentations from industry experts that sparked many good discussions:

• Sumitomo Pharma’s Himanshu Mishra shared valuable insights into their unique patient and product journey. Having both, features of an allogeneic as well as an autologous product and employing production orders on the ERP, Himanshu explained how working with us as the SAP CGTO product team helped him and SAP both further evolve the solution approach.
• Beam Therapeutics’ Vishal Khanderia shared his lessons learned from his enormous experience of 20+ years of managing clinical & commercial supply chains across multiple modalities and product launches and sparked meaningful conversations around cutting-edge approaches.
• Roche/Genentech’s Tour Ala highlighted the critical role and complexity of effective treatment scheduling. With Roche being the initial co-innovation partner for SAP’s CGTO, Tour jokingly introduced himself as the “grandfather of CGTO” and in his very own approach tried to elicit a view from the audience on how interested they are in governing standards for CGT solutions.

Our very own SAP CGTO product team, including Monika Birdi (Product Manager), Arvind Ganju (Chief Product Lead), Mandar Paralkar (VP Life Science), Sachin Kohli (Product Manager), and Sagar Nanda (Product Manager), took attendees on a tour of exciting product updates, strategic enhancements, and insightful demos with Arvind’s presentation of the SAP CGTO roadmap for the years 2025 and 2026 as a special focus topic. I think it is safe to say that we have received an enthusiastic validation from attendees for our roadmap direction, with excitement around topics like C(D)MO collaboration and the complexities of treatment scheduling.

I said it before and I will say it again, SAP would not be where it is without the incredible ecosystem and all the support we get from our partners! We are grateful for our partners that not only showed up and contributed to the discussions but brought their complimentary solution and service offerings that were showcased at the partner demo-stations for all the participants to learn more about. This is why we can confidently approach any challenge knowing that if there is any “white-space” left that we cannot address directly, our partners will take it up and deliver a high-quality solution for our customers.

One especially pleasant session for me was our fireside chat moderated by SAP’s Mazahir Valikarimwala and featuring Immatic’s Pinar Cicalese, Tenthpin’s Philipp Suek, and me as one of the SAP CGTO product managers. It highlighted Immatic’s journey from pre-clinical to clinical and hopefully soon to commercial stage. Pinar also explained their vision for digitization and their expectations and goals for the ongoing projects working closely with SAP. Philipp used this opportunity to showcase the groundbreaking Tenthpin Treatment Order Portal (T/TOP), the first healthcare provider-facing ordering portal for CGT products built on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP)—the same robust platform that also powers SAP CGTO.

We all came back energized and excited reflecting on the fruitful exchanges, many insights, and a lot of fun that we had with our customers and partners. I was very happy to see that our effort paid off and people felt it was time well spent as the feedback from the event was incredibly positive, with attendees praising the substantial progress and clear vision outlined for the near future. Participants appreciated the transparent dialogue, interactive nature, and invaluable opportunity to exchange ideas and challenges with their industry peers and us as the SAP CGTO product team. We definitely appreciate it!

Looking ahead, we warmly invite you to be part of this vibrant consortium. Our next SAP CGT Consortium event is coming up in October (more details coming soon!). If you're interested in shaping the future of SAP CGTO, discussing critical industry challenges, and connecting with other leaders in cell and gene therapy, please reach out and join us!

Want to see SAP CGTO in action or discuss how it can support your goals? Reach out today—we'd be delighted to arrange a meeting.

See you in October!