Analysts expect the market for manufacturing cell and gene therapies, worth less than $20 billion in 2024, to expand rapidly as approvals drive higher volumes of production.
The global cell and gene therapy manufacturing market will balloon in value from $19.3 billion in 2024 to an estimated $146.2 Billion by 2032, according to Credence Research.
Credence, a market research company, said its prediction that the sector will achieve a compound annual growth rate of 28.8% reflects several trends. Rising demand for advanced therapy platforms, increasing commercialization of cell and gene therapies and the development of automated and scalable processes all contribute to Credence’s calculation.
The analysis found that North America accounts for 45% of global revenue, followed by Europe with a 30% market share. Asia Pacific currently has a smaller share of the market, but Credence forecasts substantial growth through 2032.
The firm projects that regulatory approvals will drive manufacturing expansions in the coming years. While cell and gene therapy developers have already delivered several blockbusters, many more candidates could soon join them on the market. The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM) recently named 18 cell and gene therapies that are under FDA review or could be filed this year.
ARM’s list includes programs facing regulatory challenges, such as uniQure’s Huntington’s disease gene therapy. But according to analysts, the upcoming departure of Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) Director Vinay Prasad, who has been at the center of controversy in several rare disease decisions, including uniQure’s, could smooth the regulatory path for new cell and gene therapies. In addition, the breadth of the late-phase pipeline still points to the potential for commercial demand for capacity to rise through 2032, Credence noted. Rising revenues could accelerate the recovery of a sector that has peaked and troughed in recent years.
“Similar to viral vector manufacturing, cell therapy capacity is scarce, and the trend of demand outstripping supply is projected to become more acute despite investments in additional capacity being made across the industry,” John Chiminski, then the CEO of contract manufacturer Catalent, said on an earnings call in 2020. Yet by 2023, an Evercore ISI analyst was questioning whether there was excess capacity in parts of the cell and gene therapy sector.
The market has improved in recent years. At a 2023 investment conference, Tony Hunt, then CEO of bioprocessing company Repligen, said the cell and gene therapy market was “poor” at the time. Two years later, Repligen CFO Jason Garland told UBS Global Healthcare Conference that the company was “very bullish on new modality as a growth driver,” with the caveat that its gene therapy business was “still recovering.”
Companies are adding in-house and contract manufacturing capacity in anticipation of rising demand. Johnson & Johnson recently shared plans to spend $1 billion to build a cell therapy manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania. The facility could support J&J’s approved BCMA-directed CAR T cell therapy Carvykti and a CD20-based candidate that the company predicts could have annual sales in excess of $5 billion.
OXB, a cell and gene therapy service provider, raised £60 million ($81 million) to grow its manufacturing capacity last year. Months later, the company struck a deal to buy a viral vector manufacturing facility for cell and gene therapies in North Carolina.
Bio-Techne is on track to acquire Wilson Wolf Manufacturing, which makes cell therapy production technologies, CEO Kim Kelderman said on an earnings call last month. Wilson Wolf grew more than 20% in its 2025 financial year despite ongoing softness in biotech funding, Kelderman said.
