For episode 10 of the pharmaphorum podcast I spoke to Nicola Redfern, who’s general manager at bluebird bio in the UK.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company has gone from being a gene therapy start-up to having three potential blockbusters on its books, with a CAR-T cancer medicine and potential treatments for a type of sickle-cell disease and a rare and deadly genetic brain disease.

Putting that in context Nicola provided an overview of gene therapy and outlined bluebird bio’s pipeline focus, before looking at the UK market access environment for gene therapies.

Nicola Redfern, bluebird bio

With gene therapies typically arriving on the market with hefty price tags, she also explained how bluebird bio was working to address these kinds of pricing challenges.

It’s an area that plays to a number of her strengths. Prior to joining bluebird bio in November 2018 Nicola was director of oncology patient access for Baxalta in the UK and Ireland, and before that director of market access and corporate affairs for Celgene in the UK and Ireland.

The podcast, which was recorded before the European Parliament elections and Theresa May’s announcement she would be stepping down as prime minister, also discussed Brexit and its implications for the UK biotech sector.

You can listen to episode 10 of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer or find it – and subscribe to the rest of the series – in iTunes, Spotify, acast and Stitcher.