New market research states the global cell and gene therapy manufacturing services market will reach $13.8 billion by 2026, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.4 percent from its current value of $7.7 billion (in 2021).

The report suggests the high incidence of cancer, increasing investments in pharmaceutical R&D, contract development and manufacturing organisations (CDMOs) investing in advanced technologies, and increasing partnerships and agreements between pharma and CDMOs will all drive market growth. However, the high operation costs of cell and gene therapy manufacturing will restrain the market during the forecast period (2021 to 2026).

By application, clinical or commercial manufacturing, the clinical segment is expected to witness the highest growth rate because of the increasing government investment into cancer research and the expanding number of cell and gene therapy clinical trials. By end user, the pharma and biotech companies segment is expected to grow the fastest, as an increasing number of pharma companies outsource their pre-clinical studies to contract research organisations (CROs).

The cell therapy segment is anticipated to grow the fastest during the forecast period, driven by the increasing awareness about cell therapy, growing funding for new cell lines, increasing partnerships and acquisitions, and the development of advanced genomics methods for cell analysis.

The three largest cell and gene therapy manufacturing services market regions are North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Asia Pacific is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period, attributed to increasing pharmaceutical R&D spending, the growing trend of outsourcing drug discovery services, growing life sciences research, and increasing government initiatives for healthcare research.

Key cell and gene therapy manufacturing services market players include Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Merck KGaA, Charles River Laboratories, Lonza, Catalent, WuXiAppTec, Takara Bio Inc., NIKON CORPORATION, FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Oxford Biomedica plc and The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, among others.