Who are the top investors in cell therapy?
In our cell therapy market deck, you will find everything you need to understand the market
SUMMARY
ARCH Venture Partners is the strongest overall cell therapy investor today, followed by RA Capital, Venrock, Alta Partners and Vida Ventures.
The ranking rewards early conviction much more than raw deal count. Creating a company, leading an early round or staying involved through a difficult financing cycle tells us more than joining a large round after the technology has already become fashionable.
The biggest change in the market is the sudden repricing of in vivo CAR-T. AstraZeneca, AbbVie, Bristol Myers Squibb, Lilly and Johnson & Johnson have collectively attached roughly $17.5 billion of announced maximum value or committed payments to six recent transactions in the area.
ARCH ranks first partly because its record spans several generations of cell therapy. Juno established the firm's CAR-T credentials, Orbital produced a recent $1.5 billion exit, and current bets such as Aspen and CREATE keep ARCH exposed to regenerative medicine and in vivo cell engineering.
RA Capital has a different advantage: breadth without losing relevance. Capstan, Interius, Artiva and Century give it exposure across in vivo engineering, NK cells, autoimmune immune reset and iPSC-derived therapies.
Venrock's portfolio is narrower, but Kelonia may be the best individual recent venture investment in the field. The company survived repeated financing pressure on roughly $60 million of venture funding before Lilly agreed to pay $3.25 billion upfront and as much as $7 billion in total.
Alta Partners has an unusually clean two-generation CAR-T record. It backed Kite before Gilead's $11.9 billion acquisition, then returned years later with Kelonia as the industry began trying to engineer CAR-T cells directly inside patients.
Several of the strongest specialists win through company creation rather than portfolio scale. Versant built BlueRock and helped create Century, MPM built Orna from early MIT science, and Flagship's standing has jumped sharply because of Sail and Johnson & Johnson's strategic commitment.
The best investor also changes with the company. ARCH, Versant and Third Rock are particularly interesting while a company is still being assembled, Vida brings unusually relevant CAR-T operating experience, and RA or OrbiMed become harder to beat once clinical development starts demanding very large amounts of specialist capital.
The hierarchy is still moving. In vivo CAR-T and autoimmune cell therapy have made some older portfolios less relevant while rewarding investors that entered those approaches before pharma buyers began attaching multibillion-dollar values to them.
This market map, featured in our cell therapy market deck, highlights top companies and startups in the cell therapy market
Who are the top investors in cell therapy?
Who are the top cell therapy investors right now?
ARCH Venture Partners is our No. 1 cell therapy investor today, followed by RA Capital, Venrock, Alta Partners and Vida Ventures.
Our ranking changed after reviewing the latest exits, financings and clinical progress. Several recent deals are simply too large to treat as side notes. Lilly has completed its acquisitions of both Kelonia Therapeutics and Orna Therapeutics, J&J has made a huge strategic bet on Sail Biomedicines, and established investors are still putting fresh money into companies such as CREATE Medicines, Century Therapeutics and Aspen Neuroscience.
We give more credit to investors that created or led companies early than to funds that joined large rounds after the science had already been de-risked. We care about repetition too. One spectacular investment can move an investor high in the ranking, but repeatedly finding important cell therapy companies across different technology cycles carries more weight.
| Rank | Investor | Why we rank it here |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ARCH Venture Partners | Juno, Orbital, Sana, ArsenalBio, Aspen, CREATE |
| 2 | RA Capital | Capstan, Interius, Artiva, Century and broad private/public exposure |
| 3 | Venrock | Incubated Kelonia and stayed through an exceptionally difficult financing cycle |
| 4 | Alta Partners | Early investor in both Kite and Kelonia across two generations of CAR-T |
| 5 | Vida Ventures | Capstan, Allogene, Kyverna, Neogene and deep CAR-T operating experience |
| 6 | MPM BioImpact | Built Orna from early MIT science before Lilly's acquisition |
| 7 | OrbiMed | Capstan, Aspen, Century and unusually broad late-stage financing capacity |
| 8 | Versant Ventures | Created BlueRock and helped build Century around iPSC cell therapy |
| 9 | Third Rock Ventures | Abata, CARGO and Azalea, with strong company-building ability but mixed outcomes |
| 10 | Flagship Pioneering | Built Sail, now the subject of one of the biggest recent in vivo CAR-T deals |
| 11 | 5AM Ventures | Artiva, Cabaletta and other immune-cell therapy exposure |
| 12 | Cormorant Asset Management | Early conviction in Interius and repeated participation in cell therapy financings |
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest cell therapy market report.
What actually makes someone a top cell therapy investor?
For cell therapy, we rank investors by repeated early conviction, company creation or round leadership, and the quality of the outcomes that followed.
Raw deal count is a weak measure here. A crossover fund can appear in ten late-stage rounds without having made ten difficult cell therapy calls. Venrock, meanwhile, spent years supporting Kelonia when the company struggled to raise money, while Versant assembled BlueRock before there was a conventional company to finance.
Timing matters too. Investing in in vivo CAR-T today is much easier than doing it before pharma started paying billions for the technology. We therefore give extra weight to investors that entered before the consensus changed.
The final piece is range. Cell therapy now includes autologous CAR-T, allogeneic T cells, NK cells, Tregs, iPSC-derived cells, neuronal replacement, beta-islet replacement and in vivo immune engineering. ARCH and RA rank so highly partly because their portfolios moved with the field instead of staying attached to one older version of cell therapy.
As this chart shows, and as featured in our cell therapy market deck, search interest in stem cell therapy has been rising steadily
Why has the cell therapy investor ranking changed so much lately?
The cell therapy investor ranking has changed fast because in vivo CAR-T has moved to the center of pharma dealmaking.
The numbers are unusually large. AstraZeneca bought EsoBiotec for up to $1 billion. AbbVie agreed to pay up to $2.1 billion for Capstan. Bristol Myers Squibb paid $1.5 billion for Orbital Therapeutics. Lilly agreed to pay up to $2.4 billion for Orna, then paid $3.25 billion upfront for Kelonia, with the total value potentially reaching $7 billion. In July 2026, J&J committed $785 million in initial payments around Sail Biomedicines, including a $465 million equity investment, and secured an option to buy the company for another $2.58 billion.
Taken together, those six transactions carry roughly $17.5 billion in maximum announced value or committed payments.
Pharma is paying for technologies that could generate therapeutic cells directly inside patients and remove much of the manufacturing, shipping and treatment-center complexity surrounding conventional CAR-T. That has repriced one corner of cell therapy remarkably quickly.
The effect on the ranking is immediate. ARCH gains from Orbital, Venrock and Alta gain enormously from Kelonia, MPM gains from Orna, RA and Vida gain from Capstan, and Flagship suddenly has a much stronger cell therapy case through Sail.
Is ARCH Venture Partners the strongest cell therapy investor today?
Yes. ARCH Venture Partners has the strongest overall cell therapy record because it has produced important companies across several generations of the technology and is still making relevant bets now.
Juno Therapeutics gives ARCH historical credibility. Celgene bought Juno for roughly $9 billion after the company became one of the early leaders in CAR-T. Years later, ARCH led Orbital Therapeutics' $270 million Series A. Bristol Myers Squibb eventually acquired Orbital for $1.5 billion to obtain its RNA platform and in vivo CAR-T program.
The current portfolio is just as important. ARCH backs ArsenalBio in programmable T-cell therapy, Sana Biotechnology across engineered cells and in vivo delivery, Sonoma Biotherapeutics in regulatory T cells and Aspen Neuroscience in iPSC-derived neuronal replacement. ARCH also recently co-led CREATE Medicines' $122 million Series B alongside Newpath and Hatteras.
CREATE has now received approval to start its first human study of CRT-402 in autoimmune disease, giving ARCH exposure to another serious attempt at in vivo CAR-T.
Few firms can connect Juno, Orbital, Aspen and CREATE without stretching the definition of cell therapy. That repeatability puts ARCH at No. 1 for us.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest cell therapy market report.
This chart, featured in our cell therapy market deck, shows annual VC investment in cell therapy startups
Did Venrock make the best recent cell therapy investment?
Probably. Venrock's Kelonia investment is one of the strongest venture outcomes we found anywhere in recent cell therapy.
Venrock incubated and seed-funded Kelonia in 2020 around technology originating from MIT and CNRS. The company raised a $50 million Series A with Venrock, Alta Partners and Horizons Ventures, then went through a brutal period when biotech financing collapsed.
According to BioCentury and subsequent interviews with Venrock partner Bryan Roberts, Kelonia came close to running out of money several times. Venrock continued supporting the company, including through a bridge loan. Kelonia ultimately survived on around $60 million of venture funding before clinical data changed the conversation.
Lilly later agreed to pay $3.25 billion upfront for Kelonia and as much as $7 billion after milestones. Lilly has since completed the acquisition. Fierce Biotech reported that Venrock's return could exceed 45 times its original investment.
We still rank Venrock behind ARCH and RA because its cell therapy portfolio is narrower. But judged purely on the quality of one recent decision, Venrock has the strongest case.
Why is RA Capital still one of the best cell therapy investors?
RA Capital ranks second because it keeps appearing in strong cell therapy companies before the outcome is obvious, then has the capital to stay involved as those companies mature.
Capstan is the biggest example. RA led the company's $175 million Series B when Capstan was trying to push its targeted lipid nanoparticle technology into human testing. AbbVie eventually acquired Capstan after CPTX2309 entered Phase 1 development in autoimmune disease.
RA also invested in Interius BioTherapeutics' $76 million Series A. Cormorant and Fairmount led that round, so they deserve more credit for the original call, but RA still entered while Interius was preclinical. Kite later bought Interius for $350 million.
The current portfolio gives RA another advantage. RA co-led Artiva's original $78 million Series A with 5AM Ventures and venBio and has remained a major Artiva shareholder while the company's off-the-shelf NK therapy has moved into autoimmune disease. Artiva's latest update showed plans for a Phase 3 rheumatoid arthritis study and a cash position expected to fund operations into 2029.
RA also bought roughly $30 million of Century Therapeutics' $135 million private placement earlier this year. That is enough to keep RA above investors with one spectacular exit: it has stayed relevant as the field moved from oncology CAR-T toward autoimmune disease, off-the-shelf cells and regenerative medicine.
This chart, featured in our cell therapy market deck, shows how Legend Biotech is winning in cell therapy
Does Alta Partners deserve more credit in cell therapy?
Yes. Alta Partners has one of the best two-generation CAR-T records in venture capital and should rank much higher than its current visibility suggests.
Alta was an investor in Kite Pharma, which became one of the defining companies of the first CAR-T wave. Gilead bought Kite for approximately $11.9 billion in 2017, one of the largest biotech acquisitions completed at the time.
Years later, Alta backed Kelonia's $50 million Series A. That gave Alta exposure to a completely different version of CAR-T, with cells engineered directly inside the patient rather than manufactured externally.
The pairing is hard to dismiss as luck. Alta backed a winner in traditional autologous CAR-T and then another winner built around technology designed to remove much of the traditional CAR-T process.
Alta's current portfolio also includes Be Biopharma, which is developing engineered B-cell medicines, and Qihan Biotech, which combines genome engineering with allogeneic cells and transplantation.
We rank Alta fourth because ARCH and RA have broader current portfolios and Venrock played the more central role in creating Kelonia. On realized cell therapy outcomes, Alta can compete with almost anyone on this list.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest cell therapy market report.
Is Vida Ventures really a cell therapy specialist?
Yes. Vida Ventures has one of the most concentrated cell therapy portfolios among major biotech funds, and the firm's operating background gives those investments extra credibility.
Vida backed Capstan, Kyverna Therapeutics, Allogene Therapeutics, A2 Biotherapeutics and Neogene Therapeutics. These cover in vivo CAR-T, autoimmune CAR-T, allogeneic CAR-T, solid-tumor T cells and personalized T-cell therapies.
The people behind Vida make the pattern easier to understand. Founder Arie Belldegrun built Kite Pharma before starting Vida and later co-founded Allogene. Vida managing director Rajul Jain previously served as Kite's chief medical officer and worked on Yescarta and Tecartus. David Chang, now a scientific adviser to Vida, previously led R&D at Kite and later co-founded Allogene.
That operating history is unusually relevant in cell therapy. Manufacturing, conditioning regimens, treatment-center logistics, toxicity and patient selection can decide whether a scientifically impressive therapy becomes a useful product.
Vida therefore deserves a top-five position even though its portfolio is smaller than RA's or OrbiMed's. The fund repeatedly invests where its own team has already built and developed cell therapies.
This chart, featured in our cell therapy market deck, shows annual funding in cell therapy startups
Should MPM BioImpact move up the ranking after Orna Therapeutics?
Yes. MPM BioImpact now has one of the clearest recent cell therapy outcomes through Orna Therapeutics, although we still want more repetition before putting MPM in the top five.
MPM built Orna around MIT research into engineered circular RNA. Orna raised an $80 million Series A in 2021, followed by a $221 million Series B involving Merck and the existing MPM-backed syndicate.
Orna later redirected that RNA platform toward in vivo CAR-T, particularly CD19-targeted immune reset for autoimmune disease. Lilly agreed earlier this year to acquire Orna for as much as $2.4 billion, and Lilly's latest quarterly results confirm that the acquisition has closed.
MPM entered Orna years before in vivo CAR-T became one of biotech's hottest acquisition themes. Pharma buyers are now paying exceptional prices for technologies that could turn CAR-T into something much closer to a conventional injectable medicine.
That earns MPM sixth place in our ranking. Another strong cell therapy company from the same playbook would make a top-five position easy to defend.
Is OrbiMed still one of the most important cell therapy investors?
Yes. OrbiMed remains one of the most useful investors for understanding which cell therapy companies can survive the jump from interesting science to expensive clinical development.
OrbiMed participated in Capstan across multiple rounds and has also backed Century Therapeutics. Aspen Neuroscience gives us an even cleaner example of OrbiMed's ability to stay with a company over time.
Aspen is developing patient-specific iPSC-derived dopaminergic neurons for Parkinson's disease. OrbiMed led its $70 million Series A, stayed involved in the $147 million Series B and then co-led a $115 million Series C with ARCH, Frazier Life Sciences and Revelation Partners.
Regenerative cell therapy needs enormous amounts of capital before commercialization. A startup can spend years solving manufacturing and clinical problems before getting anything close to conventional drug revenue.
OrbiMed's strength is less about creating the most famous cell therapy startup from scratch. The firm is exceptionally good at supplying large amounts of specialist capital once a program becomes serious enough to require it.
This chart, featured in our cell therapy market deck, compares the main business model options for cell therapy biotech companies
Who are the best investors in iPSC and regenerative cell therapy?
Versant Ventures is our strongest specialist in iPSC and regenerative cell therapy, with ARCH and OrbiMed close behind.
Versant conceived BlueRock Therapeutics in 2015 and spent more than a year assembling the stem-cell science, intellectual property, management and manufacturing capabilities before formally launching the company with Bayer. BlueRock started with a $225 million Series A, then Bayer acquired the remaining shares in a transaction valuing the company at up to $1 billion.
Versant also helped create Century Therapeutics around iPSC-derived cellular medicines. Century has since moved beyond oncology and is developing an iPSC-derived beta-islet replacement therapy for type 1 diabetes alongside an off-the-shelf CAR-iT program.
The category is getting more interesting right now. Century's latest update said its type 1 diabetes program remains on track for an IND submission later this year, while Aspen continues advancing neuronal replacement therapy for Parkinson's disease.
| Investor | Key regenerative cell therapy bets | Our read |
|---|---|---|
| Versant Ventures | BlueRock, Century | Strongest pure company-creation record in iPSC |
| ARCH Venture Partners | Aspen, Sana, other engineered-cell platforms | Broader than Versant and active across multiple cell types |
| OrbiMed | Aspen, Century | Strong clinical-stage and follow-on financing capability |
| Leaps by Bayer | BlueRock, Century | Strategically important corporate investor |
| RA Capital | Century and other engineered-cell companies | Increasing exposure as regenerative programs mature |
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest cell therapy market report.
Does Third Rock Ventures still belong among the top cell therapy investors after CARGO?
Yes. Third Rock still belongs in the top group, although CARGO makes its recent cell therapy record much harder to call consistently successful.
Third Rock seeded Abata Therapeutics and led its $95 million Series A around engineered regulatory T cells for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Abata has since moved ABA-101 into clinical development for progressive multiple sclerosis.
CARGO Therapeutics looked even more promising for a time. Third Rock co-led a $200 million Series A around a CD22 CAR-T program that already had human data. The company went public, but the core program eventually failed to show enough durability and safety to remain competitive. CARGO discontinued the study and later stopped development operations.
Third Rock has already made its next move. The firm created Azalea Therapeutics and led its $65 million Series A, part of $82 million raised by the company, around technology for engineering therapeutic cells directly inside patients.
That keeps Third Rock in our top ten. The company-building ability is still obvious, but CARGO is enough of a miss to place Third Rock below ARCH, RA and several investors with cleaner recent outcomes.
This chart, featured in our cell therapy market deck, shows how market revenue is split across customer segments in the cell therapy market
Which investors are best positioned for in vivo CAR-T and autoimmune cell therapy?
Venrock, RA Capital, ARCH, MPM BioImpact and Flagship Pioneering currently have the strongest exposure to the in vivo CAR-T shift, while Vida and 5AM look especially strong in autoimmune cell therapy more broadly.
The distinction between the two themes is already getting blurry. Many of the leading in vivo CAR-T programs are being developed for autoimmune diseases because deep B-cell depletion could potentially produce long remissions from a single treatment.
RA also benefits from conventional off-the-shelf approaches. Artiva recently received FDA RMAT designation for AlloNK plus rituximab in refractory rheumatoid arthritis and plans to start a Phase 3 registrational study. 5AM was one of Artiva's original Series A co-leads and also backed Cabaletta Bio, another important autoimmune cell therapy company.
ARCH has a different angle through CREATE, which recently cleared the final regulatory step needed to begin its first human autoimmune study of CRT-402.
| Investor | Main exposure | Why we care now |
|---|---|---|
| Venrock | Kelonia | Extremely early conviction in clinically validated in vivo CAR-T |
| RA Capital | Capstan, Interius, Artiva | Exposure across in vivo and off-the-shelf immune reset |
| ARCH | CREATE, Orbital | Repeated bets on RNA-driven in vivo cell engineering |
| MPM BioImpact | Orna | Built a major circular-RNA in vivo CAR-T platform |
| Flagship Pioneering | Sail | Built a targeted RNA platform now backed heavily by J&J |
| Vida Ventures | Kyverna and other immune-cell companies | Deep CAR-T and autoimmune operating expertise |
| 5AM Ventures | Artiva, Cabaletta | Strong exposure to scalable autoimmune cell therapy |
Are pharma investors taking over cell therapy investing?
Pharma companies now have far more influence over cell therapy capital, but specialist venture firms still control many of the earliest and most important company-building decisions.
Capstan's investor syndicate already showed how crowded the strategic side had become. Bristol Myers Squibb, Lilly, Leaps by Bayer, Novartis Venture Fund and Pfizer Ventures were all existing investors before RA led the company's Series B, while JJDC joined that round.
The J&J deal with Sail takes strategic involvement much further. J&J committed $785 million in initial payments, including a $465 million equity investment, and secured an exclusive option to acquire Sail for another $2.58 billion.
Lilly has gone further still through outright ownership. The company completed both the Orna and Kelonia acquisitions this year, effectively buying two different approaches to in vivo CAR-T.
Venture-backed cell therapy companies now have more routes to a large outcome before commercialization. A company can be acquired, licensed, strategically financed or optioned long before it has an approved therapy.
For the earliest science, firms such as ARCH, Venrock, MPM, Versant and Third Rock remain crucial because they are willing to create companies before pharma has enough data to justify a billion-dollar commitment.
This chart, featured in our cell therapy market deck, shows how CAR-T cell therapy technology has evolved over time
Which cell therapy investors are moving up fastest?
Flagship Pioneering, Cormorant, 5AM Ventures, Newpath Partners and TCGX are the names we would watch most closely outside the first few positions.
Flagship has made the biggest jump. Sail was formed by combining technologies developed inside Flagship's ecosystem, and the J&J transaction suddenly gives Flagship a major position in the hottest part of cell therapy.
Cormorant deserves more recognition for Interius. Cormorant and Fairmount co-led the $76 million Series A in 2021, years before Kite paid $350 million for the company. Cormorant also joined Artiva's $120 million Series B.
5AM's Artiva investment looks increasingly interesting as the company moves deeper into autoimmune disease and later-stage development.
Newpath and Hatteras are worth tracking because both co-led CREATE's recent $122 million financing with ARCH. If CREATE's in vivo CAR-T platform produces convincing human autoimmune data, those early positions could become much more valuable.
TCGX is playing a different role. The firm led Century Therapeutics' $135 million private placement earlier this year, committing roughly $40 million itself. Century now has enough cash to push its type 1 diabetes and CAR-iT programs through several major clinical milestones.
None of these names has displaced the leaders yet, but the gap can close very quickly in cell therapy. One good clinical dataset can change what the industry is willing to pay for an entire approach.
Which cell therapy investor would we actually choose as a founder?
ARCH would be our first call for a very early cell therapy company that still needs to be built, while RA Capital would be our first call for a company that already has strong science and needs serious financing depth.
ARCH repeatedly takes on company formation itself. That is useful when the founding science still needs management, intellectual property, manufacturing strategy and a development plan assembled around it.
Versant would be particularly attractive for an iPSC or regenerative medicine startup. Third Rock would make sense for a scientifically unusual platform that needs hands-on creation. Venrock deserves serious attention for founders willing to build leanly and push through difficult financing periods, because Kelonia shows how committed the firm can be when it believes the biology is right.
Once a program is approaching the clinic, RA and OrbiMed become especially powerful. Both can finance large rounds and continue investing as a company moves through public markets.
Vida would be one of our first calls for CAR-T because the firm's team has actually built and developed major CAR-T products. That operating experience can be as useful as the check.
The best investor for a founder depends heavily on where the company is today. The overall ranking tells us who has made the strongest decisions; founder fit tells us who is most likely to solve the next problem.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest cell therapy market report.
In our cell therapy market deck, we identify pain points entrepreneurs should prioritize
So, who are the top investors in cell therapy?
ARCH Venture Partners is the strongest overall cell therapy investor today, with RA Capital second and Venrock third.
ARCH wins because no other investor in our review combines the same level of historical success, company creation and current relevance. Juno established the early record. Orbital produced a recent $1.5 billion exit. ArsenalBio, Sana and Aspen keep ARCH exposed to ex vivo and regenerative approaches, while CREATE puts the firm directly into the current in vivo CAR-T race.
RA comes next because its cell therapy exposure is broader and more continuous than almost any rival. The firm has participated across in vivo engineering, NK cells, iPSC therapies and public-market financings, with several important outcomes already realized.
Venrock moves into third because Kelonia has become impossible to treat as a normal venture win. Incubating a company that survived repeated cash crises on roughly $60 million and ultimately sold for $3.25 billion upfront is an exceptional piece of investing.
Alta and Vida complete our top five. Alta has the remarkable combination of Kite and Kelonia across two CAR-T generations. Vida has a concentrated portfolio plus operating experience few investment firms can match.
The biggest change comes from what is happening now. In vivo CAR-T and autoimmune cell therapy are reshuffling the old hierarchy quickly. Investors that spotted those shifts before the recent multibillion-dollar acquisition wave deserve more credit than firms adding cell therapy exposure after pharma made the opportunity obvious.
OUR METHODOLOGY
There is no single metric that identifies the best cell therapy investor. We built the ranking around several dimensions: when an investor entered, whether it helped create or lead a company, whether that conviction repeated across multiple companies, what outcomes followed, and how relevant those investments remain as cell therapy changes.
We assessed investors from the company level up. For each firm, we reviewed individual portfolio companies and recent evidence including financings, acquisitions, clinical progress, strategic transactions and continued portfolio activity, then compared those observations across investors rather than letting one headline deal or a large number of passive investments determine the result.
Recency receives meaningful weight because cell therapy is moving unusually quickly. The recent wave of large in vivo CAR-T transactions matters not simply because the prices are large, but because AstraZeneca, AbbVie, Bristol Myers Squibb, Lilly and Johnson & Johnson have independently committed substantial capital to related approaches.
We also distinguish visibility from conviction. Participation in a late-stage financing carries less weight than creating a company, leading an early financing or continuing to support it when capital becomes difficult to raise. Early involvement is particularly valuable when it predates broad acceptance of the underlying technology.
The ranking is not a mechanical scorecard. One exceptional outcome can materially improve an investor's position, as Kelonia did for Venrock, but repeated strong decisions across companies, stages and technology cycles provide stronger evidence of sustained investment judgment.
We use a broad definition of cell therapy that reflects where the field is actually moving. It includes autologous and allogeneic cell therapies, NK cells, regulatory T cells, iPSC-derived replacement therapies and technologies designed to engineer therapeutic cells directly inside the body.
Key transaction sources include Lilly's announcement of the Kelonia Therapeutics acquisition, Lilly's second-quarter 2026 results confirming the Kelonia and Orna transactions had closed, Lilly's Orna Therapeutics acquisition announcement, Johnson & Johnson's Sail Biomedicines transaction, Bristol Myers Squibb's Orbital Therapeutics acquisition, AbbVie's Capstan Therapeutics acquisition announcement, AstraZeneca's confirmation of the EsoBiotec acquisition, and Gilead's confirmation of its Kite Pharma acquisition.
For financing, clinical and company-building evidence, key sources include Orbital Therapeutics on its $270 million Series A led by ARCH, CREATE Medicines on its $122 million Series B, CREATE Medicines on approval to begin its first human CRT-402 study, Artiva on its original $78 million Series A, Artiva's second-quarter 2026 clinical and financial update, Interius on its $76 million Series A, Century Therapeutics on its $135 million private placement, Century Therapeutics on its program status and type 1 diabetes timeline, Versant Ventures on the creation and financing of BlueRock Therapeutics, and Bayer on its acquisition of the remaining BlueRock shares.
This source set is deliberately selective rather than exhaustive. We prioritized evidence that helps answer the ranking question directly: who entered early, who created or led companies, who continued supporting them, what happened afterward, and whether those earlier decisions still look important in the current cell therapy market.
This chart, featured in our cell therapy market deck, shows the regional revenue split across Europe, Asia, North America, Africa, and South America in the cell therapy market
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