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On behalf of the Business Development & Finance Committee

The cell and gene therapy (CGT) industry continues to evolve rapidly, with investment activity providing an important window into where investors and biopharma companies see future opportunity. As part of its quarterly market tracking efforts, the ISCT Business Development and Finance (BDF) Committee reviews major financings and M&A transactions across the sector to understand how capital is being deployed and which technologies are attracting attention. In this edition, CGT deals valued greater than $50M from Q2 2026 are discussed.

Trends in CGT Investment

In 2025, M&A values ranged from just $350M in Q3 to $4.09B in Q2, showing how significantly overall activity can be influenced by a small number of large deals. By comparison, series financing was relatively stable, remaining about $1B per quarter (Figure 1). The picture changed in 2026, particularly in Q1, when M&A value jumped to $9.96B and accounted for around 90% of all disclosed deal value which was largely led by a single acquisition. Activity cooled in Q2, with M&A falling back to $3.95B. Meanwhile, series financings reached $1.65 billion, the highest level in the dataset. Combined M&A and financing activity reached $16.6B in H1 2026, already surpassing the $12.0B recorded across the whole of 2025. Overall, the data does not indicate clear evidence that investment in CGT has increased since Q1 2025, either in M&A transactions or VC series financing. 

Figure 1. Changes in investment with M&A and venture financing deals over time within cell and gene therapy.

In Q4 2026 specifically, 24 disclosed cell and gene therapy deals above $50 million USD were identified (Table 1), amounting to approximately $7 billion USD in upfront value, with a further $6.5 billion in potential milestone payments, or “biobucks”. This activity was driven primarily by M&A transactions, with further contributions from venture financing, public offerings, and licensing agreements (Figure 1). Although licensing contributed substantially to the headline value, much of this was milestone-based. One notable outlier was Aspect Biosystems, which received grant funding of more than $100 million from the Canadian government, potentially signalling growing national interest in supporting advanced therapies.

Figure 2. Overview of deals (valued at >$50 million USD) in Q2 2026.

M&A Deals

Three acquisitions were recorded in Q2 (Figure 2), together accounting for almost half of the quarter’s total disclosed deal value. By far the largest was Eli Lilly’s $3.25 billion upfront acquisition of Kelonia Therapeutics, making it one of the biggest recent transactions in cell and gene therapy. While in vivo CAR-T is no longer a novel concept, the scale of Lilly’s investment highlights continued investor enthusiasm for in vivo platforms. The deal is also a bet on Kelonia’s proprietary in vivo Gene Placement System (iGPS), underscoring how large pharmaceutical companies are interested in platform capabilities. Importantly, Kelonia has generated human Phase I clinical data for its in vivo CAR-T approach, giving the transaction a stronger translational foundation than earlier preclinical platform deals. The acquisition also reinforces Lilly’s commitment to cell and gene therapy.

Figure 3. M&A deals in Q2 2026 categorised by technology.

A much smaller acquisition was of Replay by LEO Pharma. Although much of CGT investment activity centred on in vivo CAR-T, RNA and non-viral delivery technologies, Replay's acquisition by LEO Pharma demonstrates interest in alternative viral vector platforms. Replay's technology is based on herpes simplex virus (HSV) vectors, a relatively underrepresented modality compared with AAV. While HSV has not achieved the same level of commercial adoption as AAV, its ability to accommodate substantially larger genetic payloads offers potential advantages for gene and cell therapies. 

Venture Financing Deals

Venture financing accounted for 11 transactions worth approximately $1.5B USD (Figure 2). While funding was distributed across a broad range of modalities, RNA-focused companies emerged as the clear winners, attracting approximately $589M, more than twice the capital invested into CAR-T companies combined (~$282M). Other notable categories included non-viral delivery ($175M), AAV ($222M), gene editing ($230M), manufacturing ($70M) and epigenetic reprogramming ($80M).

The largest venture financing of the quarter went to NewLimit, which raised $435 million, making it not only the largest private financing in the dataset but also one of the largest biotechnology venture rounds of the year. NewLimit is an anti-ageing biotechnology company co-founded by Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong that is developing therapies aiming to restore cellular function through epigenetic reprogramming. The company combines mRNA-based therapeutics with lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery to selectively alter gene expression patterns associated with ageing. Rather than treating a single disease, NewLimit's platform is intended to reverse age-related cellular dysfunction. For the purposes of this analysis, NewLimit was categorised within RNA because its therapeutic approach is delivered through an mRNA-based platform. However, its mechanism is rooted in epigenetic reprogramming. Its inclusion among the quarter’s largest financings therefore also points to growing investor interest in epigenetics, a relatively new and still emerging therapeutic area within the broader CGT landscape.

Figure 4. Venture financing deals in Q2 2026 categorised by technology.

CAR-T attracted the second-largest share of venture capital. Create Medicines ($122M), Oricell Therapeutics ($110M) and Vivacta Biotechnology ($50M) all raised substantial rounds to advance in vivo cell engineering approaches. Notably, all three were centred on in vivo approaches, with no major ex vivo CAR-T venture rounds identified in the dataset. This marks a clear skew towards in vivo cell engineering and suggests that investors remain strongly attracted to platforms that could simplify manufacturing, reduce costs and broaden access compared with conventional ex vivo CAR-T models.

The type of delivery vector used to deliver these payloads, whether RNA or otherwise, is critical and investors lately are keen on non-viral methods. Several of the quarter's largest financings involved companies developing alternatives to traditional viral vectors, particularly those leveraging lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) and other synthetic delivery systems. NewLimit technology financing included an LNP-enabled mRNA platform, while Serif Biomedicines raised $50M to advance a non-viral, LNP-based approach to DNA medicines. Among the non-viral companies, SonoThera stood out for its unique approach. Rather than relying solely on lipid nanoparticles, SonoThera is developing an ultrasound-mediated delivery platform (referred to in the industry as “sonoporation”) that uses acoustic energy and engineered microbubbles to facilitate targeted delivery of genetic medicines. The company secured a $125M financing round backed by several major pharmaceutical companies, including Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, UCB and Otsuka. Sonoporation is not a new concept; however, it remains far less widely recognised than viral delivery or LNPs. The approach is supported by decades of research, and SonoThera is now building on that foundation to position ultrasound-mediated delivery as a differentiated route for genetic medicine.

Another unusual financing in the quarter was Cellares, which raised an additional $70M in Q2 from new investors ARK Invest and Prime Radiant Partners to advance its cell therapy manufacturing platform and close its Series D fundraising. Unlike most companies featured in the dataset, Cellares is not developing a therapeutic product. Instead, it is building automated manufacturing infrastructure designed to address one of the cell therapy industry's most persistent bottlenecks: production scalability. The company's Cell Shuttle platform aims to automate and standardise many of the labour-intensive steps involved in cell therapy manufacturing, reducing costs, increasing throughput and improving process consistency. Much of the wider bioprocessing and manufacturing tools market is dominated by established suppliers such as Sartorius and Cytiva, so inclusion of Cellares among the quarter’s larger financings suggests that investors are willing to back specialised start-ups within this space.

AI and Non-CAR T Cell Therapies

Headline transaction within CGT does not typically include primarily AI-driven companies with occasional exceptions like Dyno Therapeutics. However, this quarter, there were two significantly deals involving AI and CGT: Profluent's licensing deal with Eli Lilly and METiS TechBio's $270M public offering (Table 1). The standout example was Profluent, which signed a licensing agreement with Eli Lilly worth up to $2.25B in milestone payments and future royalties (upfront payment undisclosed), making it one of the largest AI-focused transactions observed in the cell and gene therapy sector and also in broader biotech. Rather than applying AI solely to target discovery, Profluent uses large-scale generative AI models to design entirely new gene-editing systems and recombinases. This could be used potentially to complement Eli Lilly’s in vivo platforms.

Beyond the various CAR-T transactions, three non-CAR-T cell therapy investments were identified: Artiva Biotherapeutics' $300M public offering for allogeneic NK cell therapies, Obsidian Therapeutics' $350M public offering focused on tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapies, and the acquisition of Neurona Therapeutics by UCB (Table 1). Interestingly, out of the eight cell therapy-based deals, only Neurona Therapeutics was not associated with immune cells. Based on this, investors likely see more commercial value in T cell systems than other cell therapies.  

Table 1. Companies with disclosed cell and gene therapy financing, acquisition,
licensing or grant activity above $50 million USD in Q2 2026.