Advanced therapies require soft skills: insights from a National Academies Working Group

The field of cell and gene therapy and regenerative medicine continues to rapidly develop, with 45+ total product approvals by the Food and Drug Administration, and hundreds of ongoing trials, at the time of this publication. This maturation coincides with the need for a trained workforce in a field that continues to grow in scope, scale, and expertise. To explore the workforce needs within the regenerative medicine sector, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Forum on Regenerative Medicine hosted a series of sessions through its Workforce Development Working Group. During these discussions, companies of various sizes and with products across the clinical trials process, preclinical, clinical, and postapproval, were asked to address a series of questions about their workforce, hiring plans, and skill gaps. The intent was to focus on technical skills required in regenerative medicine, but based on the responses from the participants, what emerged was the importance of soft skills, which seem to be overlooked when developing training plans for learners in the cell and gene therapy field.