Blueprint for Breakthroughs is a LinkedIn newsletter published by Adrienne B. Mendoza, MHA, SVP BioBridge Global and Chief Operating Officer (COO), BBG Advanced Therapies
Originally published on LinkedIn on July 1, 2025 Adrienne Mendoza makes valuable connections between architecture and advanced therapies
My dad enjoyed an incredible career in architecture, shaping the spaces where people live, work, and heal. He often shares lessons with me from his time in the field, and his design philosophies – and I find myself drawing more and more inspiration from them, especially now that I lead teams working to reshape how cell and gene therapies (CGT) reach people.
Recently, he talked about how architecture sometimes drifts into artistic indulgence: impressive projects that look great on paper but lose sight of the people and functions they’re supposed to serve. Sometimes, the field gets caught up in trends…designing for the moment rather than for the enduring realities of the people who will actually live and work within those spaces.
He shared a story he found about a leaking Library in Norman, Oklahoma. It was designed to be iconic—a showpiece for a growing city. But within weeks of opening, it was making headlines for all the wrong reasons: costly water damage, design flaws, and frustration from the people it was supposed to serve. It looked stunning in renderings, but didn’t hold up to reality.
The same pattern plays out in advanced therapies. We’re pushing biology to new frontiers—engineering cells, and imagining new ways to treat disease. It’s bold. It’s complex. It’s necessary. But if we don’t design these innovations to work – to scale, to integrate into real healthcare environments, to reach the people who need them, they risk becoming scientific indulgences. Brilliant on paper. Fragile in practice.
First Principles Apply to More Than Buildings
Great architects lean on first principles: proportion, balance, rhythm, unity, and above all, function. The same should hold true in CGT. We have to design therapies with human realities at the center. That means considering every person along the access journey: the patient, the care team, the apheresis nurse, the manufacturing tech, the family navigating treatment options.
It’s not enough to ask if a therapy works in the lab. We have to ask:
- How does it fit into clinical workflows?
- Can it reach patients beyond major academic centers?
- Does it balance scientific complexity with accessibility?
- Does it unify discovery, manufacturing, delivery, and patient access?
If the answers don’t hold up in the real world, the foundation cracks, or the roof leaks.
Building for the Real World
At BBG Advanced Therapies, that’s the work we’re focused on every day. Innovating practical infrastructure that makes breakthrough science real:
- Mobile leukapheresis teams to bring critical skills, equipment, and logistics support to more communities.
- Characterization, potency, purity, safety testing, and manufacturing systems designed to flex with demand.
- Development programs that help therapies scale without crumbling at the handoff points.
Because too often, CGT delivery models assume healthcare access that simply doesn’t exist for everyone. And if we ignore that, the therapies, no matter how revolutionary, remain distant promises.
A Timely Shift Toward Access
The FDA’s recent decision to remove REMS requirements and related site certifications for approved CAR-T therapies is a turning point. The message is clear: safety and efficacy matter, but so does access. Therapies can’t just be scientifically sound—they have to work within the realities of people’s lives.
That’s why flexible, patient-centered models, regional manufacturing, mobile platforms, community-based delivery, aren’t just nice to have. They’re now essential and in my view, it’s the only way this field scales beyond ideas and hope into real, reliable care.
The Blueprint That Lasts
My dad taught me: innovation and beauty matter most when design is grounded in the lives of those it’s meant to serve. The same is true in CGT and that’s the blueprint my team and I are working to bring to life, so that advanced therapies don’t just exist, but actually reach the people who need them.
