Insight

John Rasko/LinkedIn

Aug 31, 2025, 19:34

John Rasko Shares Insights from Shanghai Meetings

John Rasko, Past President of the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (2018-22), shared a post on LinkedIn:

“Returning from a spectacular series of meetings/conferences in Shanghai and Hangzhou as a guest of Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University offered me some unprecedented opportunities to discuss biomedical and health initiatives. One of my talks entitled “The roller coaster of clinical cell and gene therapies” highlighted current challenges including immunology, equity and reimbursement.

Honoured and humbled to spend several hours with the previous Chinese Health Minister/ and haematologist Zhu CHEN. He made exceptional contributions to global medicine and to healthcare reform in China – with specific understanding of better ways to treat blood cancers (APML and ATRA).

Professor Chen leaned over and asked me “Do we have too much regulation?”. Having spent almost two decades as Chair of Australia’s peak advisory body on gene technology and serving on the World Health Organization medicine nomenclature committee, my dedication to independent expert empirical regulation is ‘a given’.

But as we talked, it made me realise that our desire to minimise harm has to be balanced with the unmet medical needs of countless people who want new (and old) health gains to be delivered sooner rather than later. It’s a balance that needs to be reconsidered for every jurisdiction and circumstance – interested to hear views from around the world!”

John Rasko