Emerging Trends in Cell Therapy CDMO: Big Pharma Strategies

Published: January 2026

Cell therapies, which involve the use of living cells to repair, replace, or regenerate damaged tissues and organs, represent one of the most transformative advances in modern medicine. This emerging field has captured growing attention as scientists and clinicians explore its potential to treat a wide range of diseases, from cancer and autoimmune disorders to neurodegenerative conditions and genetic abnormalities. The development of cell-based therapies is both complex and promising, as it aims to harness the body’s own biological machinery to restore normal function, offering new hope where conventional treatments have fallen short.

Currently, CDMOs hold largest share in cell therapy manufacturing domain. This can be attributed to various factors, including experienced and skilled workforce, advanced infrastructure dedicated to cell therapy manufacturing, and established quality control and quality assurance frameworks. Moreover, CDMOs offer scalability and operational flexibility, enabling them to quickly adapt to the evolving manufacturing needs and accommodate increased production volumes.

Roots Analysis has conducted an exhaustive study on Cell Therapy Manufacturing Market featuring the current landscape and future opportunity for the companies engaged in cell therapy manufacturing domain. In this article, we have highlighted the market trends that are likely to shape the evolution of cell therapy CDMO.

Emerging Trends in Cell Therapy CDMO

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Recent Trends in Cell Therapy Manufacturing Market and Key Factors Likely to Shape the Market Evolution

1. Cell Therapy CDMO Service Providers: Transforming Biopharmaceutical Development

Currently, close to 200 players in this domain are equipped to manufacture cell therapies. Majority of such players (~60%) are headquartered in Europe. This is followed by the players headquartered in North America (~20%) and Asia-Pacific (~20%). It is worth highlighting that these players offer various other additional services (along with cell therapy manufacturing), including cell characterization, advanced technology, scale-up, process development and fill-finish.

2. Expanding Cell Therapy Capabilities: Big Pharma’s Strategic Moves For Facility Expansions

Owing to the rising demand for cell therapies, cell therapy CDMO big pharma providers are actively expanding their capacities by new facility additions coupled with advancements in technology. For instance, in August 2025 Minaris Advanced Therapies opened new GMP manufacturing facility in Munich, Germany. Further, in order to address the demands of customers, players in this domain offer services at different scales of operation (preclinical, clinical and commercial), ensuring flexibility in meeting specific production requirements. Notably, the majority (~42%) of these cell therapy CDMO service providers operate at commercial scale of operation, followed by clinical scale (41%).

3. Driving Cell Therapy Advancement: Big Pharma’s Investment Initiatives

As per our cell therapy manufacturing CDMO analysis, big pharma players are investing heavily in cell therapy development. For instance, Bayer raised EUR 5 billion in 2024 to support this effort.3 This funding drives global development, infrastructure expansion, and clinical trials, accelerating innovation and commercialization in the cell therapy sector. Moreover, the high capital investment encourages research into next-generation cell therapies, like new technological platforms for manufacturing cell therapies.

4. Partnerships and Collaborations: Fostering Progress and Innovation

Based on the cell therapy manufacturing CDMO analysis, big pharma players in this domain are known to adopt a variety of partnership models in order to collaborate with other small firms / organizations. Such deals are undertaken to allow small firms to expand their respective portfolios, and gain additional capabilities related to cell therapies. Notably, product development, manufacturing and commercialization agreement, and R&D, manufacturing and commercialization agreement emerged as the most popular types of partnership models adopted by big pharma players in this domain. These partnerships enables partner companies to leverage the specialized expertise and scalable manufacturing capabilities of big pharma players, thereby accelerating the development, reducing time to market, and improving the overall efficiency and success rate of bringing innovative cell therapies to patients.

In March 2025, Astellas Pharma entered into a collaboration with YASKAWA Electric Corporation to develop a next-generation cell therapy manufacturing platform. Through this partnership, Astellas aims to overcome challenges in the commercialization of cell therapies while empowering academic institutions and startup companies to bring innovative cell therapies to life.

5. Strategic Mergers and Acquisitions: How Big Players are Influencing the Market

Over the last few years, numerous big pharmaceutical companies have marked their presence in the field of cell therapy manufacturing by partnering with other manufacturers, making investments in this domain, expanding capabilities / facilities and acquiring new firms. Such initiatives help stakeholders engaged in this industry to achieve mutual goals more effectively and improve the overall operational efficiency. Notably, maximum initiatives by big players in this domain have been in the year 2024. In addition, in May 2025, AstraZeneca acquired EsoBiotec as part of its mergers and acquisitions initiatives, gaining the innovative ENaBL platform that enables rapid in vivo cell therapies delivering immune-boosting treatments against cancer in minutes, rather than weeks.

6. CAR-T Cell Therapy Demand Surges: Leading the Cell Therapy Manufacturing Market

CAR-T cell therapy has emerged as one of the most in-demand cell therapies. This growing demand is driven by its personalized and potentially curative nature, particularly in the treatment of hematological malignancies. By tailoring treatment to individual patients, CAR-T cells can enhance therapeutic efficacy while reducing adverse effects, making them a highly promising option for many. Key manufacturers of CAR-T cell therapies include (in alphabetical order) Advanced Therapies, Bramble Bio, ImmunityBio, and Kincell Bio.

Conclusion

Our cell therapy CDMO analysis signifies the potential of big pharma players to revolutionize cell therapies in the healthcare domain, thereby opening a whole new range of possibilities in this sector. Notably, the development and manufacturing of cell therapies require technical expertise and infrastructure with larger capacities and capital costs. As a result, majority of the stakeholders engaged in production of cell-based products are outsourcing their operations to contract manufacturing organizations. This will enhance overall efficiency and scalability with faster production and lower costs, enabling the companies to focus on their core competencies while relying on external partners for cell therapies manufacturing.

As research advances and regulatory frameworks mature, the industry is expected to witness a surge in technological innovations, strategic partnerships and big player initiatives. These trends will not only improve efficiency and scalability of cell-based products but also enable broader adoption of these products beyond oncology to autoimmune disorders, neurological disorders and solid tumors. The cell therapy manufacturing market to be positioned as a critical pillar in the future of biopharmaceutical development.

Browse our full report on Cell Therapy Manufacturing Market:
https://www.rootsanalysis.com/reports/cell-therapy-manufacturing/285.html#overview

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