Atlas · Cell therapy
Who is doing what in cell therapy
A map of every immune cell therapy trial on ClinicalTrials.gov, the centers that run them, the companies behind them, what has been approved, and 10,000 recent papers. Each record links to its primary source.
What the data shows
New cell therapy trials more than doubled in five years: 203 registered in 2020, 440 in 2025.
Basis: trials by first-registered year on ClinicalTrials.gov, classified as immune cell therapy. 2026 had 382 by early October.
The single biggest sponsor of cell therapy trials is a Chinese university, not a US cancer center: Zhejiang University sponsors 87, ahead of MD Anderson with 82.
Basis: lead sponsor field on ClinicalTrials.gov. Three of the top five sponsors are Chinese academic hospitals.
MD Anderson runs more cell therapy trials than any other center: 172, ahead of City of Hope (105) and Memorial Sloan Kettering (99).
Basis: trials listing the center as a site. Site names were merged in two narrow steps; 25 MD Anderson name variants became one center.
The US hosts about twice as many cell therapy trial sites as China: 3,831 against 1,965. France, Spain and Germany follow, far behind.
Basis: trial-site listings by country.
Leading centers
| Center | City | Trials |
|---|---|---|
| MD Anderson Cancer Center | Houston | 172 |
| City of Hope | Duarte | 105 |
| Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | New York | 99 |
| Moffitt Cancer Center | Tampa | 82 |
| University of Pennsylvania / Abramson Cancer Center | Philadelphia | 81 |
The full ranking of 4,522 centers, with every trial and paper behind each, is in the atlas.
Approved cell therapies
| Product | Company | Type | Approved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kymriah | Novartis | CAR-T | 2017 |
| Yescarta | Kite (Gilead) | CAR-T | 2017 |
| Tecartus | Kite (Gilead) | CAR-T | 2020 |
| Breyanzi | Juno (Bristol Myers Squibb) | CAR-T | 2021 |
| Abecma | Celgene (Bristol Myers Squibb) | CAR-T | 2021 |
| Carvykti | Janssen | CAR-T | 2022 |
| Amtagvi | Iovance | TIL | 2024 |
| Tecelra | Adaptimmune | TCR-T | 2024 |
| Aucatzyl | Autolus | CAR-T | 2024 |
| Tregzi | Orca Bio | Other adoptive cell therapy | 2026 |
Source: FDA, approved cellular and gene therapy products.
How it is built
Trials come from the ClinicalTrials.gov registry (374,205 records scanned, 2.3 million site rows). Centers are merged by narrow, documented rules rather than fuzzy matching, so counts are a floor. Papers come from Europe PMC full-text search. Approvals come from the FDA. Conference abstracts from SITC, ASH, AACR and ASCO show which companies present data. NIH funding (fiscal 2025, $766M to US academic centers) is matched by organization name.
Open the full atlas. The map, every trial, center, company and paper, and the readouts by target, stage and evidence. Access is free in early access and reviewed by hand.
Request access