How Technology Is Changing the Cell Solutions Donor Business

With the demand for cells growing, a digital product is designed to make cell donor recruitment faster and more efficient

Many of us have read about the amazing advances in cell therapies. Daring new treatments that, in some cases, are doing the unthinkable. Earlier this year researchers suggested that an early cell therapy developed for a form of leukemia appeared to be curative—a word not often used in the oncology world. Other cell therapies are conquering forms of blindness. And while there are only a handful of cell therapies on the global markets today, there are literally hundreds in development - evidence of how hot this field is.

But cell therapy development isn’t easy. Probably the single greatest factor in determining both the efficacy and consistency of a cellular therapeutic is the cellular starting material from which it is made. From the point of collection to the point of administration, the number of healthy therapeutic cells in a cell therapy will determine the potency of the final product.

How can we make sure there is a steady supply of viable and functional cells for early research and development? And how can we make the process faster and more efficient? One solution could be as close as your mobile phone.

A digital product to streamline cell donor collections

Historically cells have come from the patients themselves —what we call autologous donors—but as we look to scale up and scale out these life-saving treatments for diseases not just impacting a few but millions, we need to boost our base of recallable blood donors. We need loyal donors who hold key characteristics of value for cell therapy projects for which they are the best match - such as high target cell yield, a specific donor demographic, or perhaps a rare genetic marker. Cell therapy developers with access to recallable high-quality cell donors have the benefit of being able to source essentially the same starting material repeatedly.

Cultivating these recallable cell donors has typically been a manual, labor-intensive process that takes anywhere from two to three months between the time a volunteer cell donor fills out the first questionnaire to the moment when they are scheduled to give blood.

Recently, Charles River Laboratories’ HemaCare Donor Center in Memphis launched a new digital recruitment experience that will allow us to recruit cell solutions donors completely digitally, without the need for manual intervention by recruiters. This product is modeled after one adopted by the American Red Cross in 2012 for its blood drives. We were able to schedule our first prospective cell donor within 90 minutes after the social media ads promoting the new product service went live, a significant advance compared to the 2-3 months it takes using manual methods.

The rollout is an important step in leveraging a digital experience to drive donor engagement and expand our donor pool by:

• Expanding our brand presence with a donor focus and deploying targeted campaigns to drive cell donor engagement while building brand recognition
• Using a donor focused digital experience to enable one-click access for scheduling and cell donor journey tracking
• Simplifying scheduling and calendar management for our Donor Recruitment Teams and valued donors

An important unanswered question is whether giving up the human interaction for a contact-less, faster recruiting tool turns some cell donors away. And when contact is made through this digital experience, how can we make sure we are meeting the needs of the donor and nurturing that donor relationship appropriately?

“Based on our team’s initial user research, we expect the pool of donors who will be willing to self-select and self-schedule to expand with this solution. Our donors are already digitally motivated, use mobile-based experiences in their daily lives, and are prepared to go digital first with us. We are meeting the donor population where they expect us to be, on their mobile, in their social feed, and on their time and schedule,” says Erin Howard, Executive Director of Product Design, whose team has been focused on understanding the HemaCare donor, their motivations, needs, and challenges to design the initial product released this summer in Memphis.

“Through the pilot in Memphis we will be focused on learning from the donors, so that we can ensure we are providing the right mix of human-centered interactions, educational content, and zero-touch recruitment that enables their confidence and builds trust and loyalty.”

Keeping individuals engaged in the cell donation journey

After an initial pilot period, if the data looks good, this experience will be made available at all our donor collection sites. We expect to use this technology to better engage our existing pool so that we can more easily recall donors and encourage them to donate again. In this business it is important to identify the highest-value donors – that is individuals whose blood types and cells are especially useful for research—and to keep them engaged in the cell donation journey.

Maintaining recallable donor pools and continually expanding the donor base allows biopharmaceutical companies to get the right cells at the right time as fast as possible, not just for existing projects we support, but for off-the-shelf cell requests from laboratories. Face it - our donors are helping open the door to tomorrow’s treatments. The fact that we can apply technology to make this process faster and hopefully take time off the drug development process is a win for patients.

Mark Mintz is Charles River Laboratories’ Chief Information Officer. This is the first in a monthly series of blog articles about how technology can help pick up the pace of drug development.