Streamline End-to-End Process Development through AI, Automation & Vendor Management to Deepen Therapeutic Understanding, Improve Speed & Reduce Costs
The Pressure on Cell Therapy Process Development Has Never Been Higher.
Last year, the FDA published over 200 Complete Response Letters. The pattern was clear: most cell therapy rejections stem from CMC, comparability, and manufacturing readiness. Meanwhile, the number of clinical cell therapies has increased by 13% from 2024 to 2025. This has led to growing pressures to move programs toward the next clinical stage and commercialization.
The science is working, but the processes need to catch up.
That's why the 5th Process Development & Automation for Cell Therapies Summit returns in 2026 - this time in San Diego.
Bringing together Process Development, Analytical Development, QC, and MSAT leaders from early clinical to commercial stage, this is the only industry-led event dedicated exclusively to the process development and automation challenges determining whether your therapy reaches patients.
What's different this year:
- New west coast perspectives: from a fresh pool of San Diego's clinical-stage cell therapy companies joining an established community for the first time.
- Deeper automation focus: reflecting industry demand to learn how leading teams are reducing manual processes, aggregating manufacturing data, and scaling without sacrificing quality.
- Increase Late Stage & Pharma Perspectives: from Bristol Myers Squibb, Regeneron, AstraZeneca and others to support your team with examples of how to reach your next clinical or commercial stage.
This is Hanson Wade's first automation-focused conference. I'm really looking forward to a comprehensive discussion in a more mature form as the field prepares for industrializing cell therapies.
Mamta Kalra, Vice President, CMC Process & Analytical, Immatics
The technical challenges, the roadblocks, the lessons learned from process characterization - that's the conversation this conference is finally having and the industry has needed.
Schuyler Mesen, Associate Principal Process Engineer, Cabaletta Bio
The fact that the conference was tailored to the Process Development experience and that participants were so open to sharing their trials and successes made this an enjoyable experience.
Ryan Zapata, Senior Process Engineer, Arsenal Biosciences
Explore the Full Event Guide
- Hear from 18+ expert speakers covering the full cell therapy development pipeline from early clinical to commercial.
- Gain 6+ hours of late and commercial stage presentations and panel discussions you can apply immediately.
- Connect and Network with 30% of speakers from Top 20 global biopharma companies.
- 65:35 autologous to allogeneic content split across two days.
- Gain the opportunity to Join exclusive roundtables on in vivo cell therapy process development to showcase how the process will adapt to future advances.
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Explore the Agenda
Two days of niche process development case studies, panel discussions, and workshops built exclusively for cell therapy PD teams.
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Put your solutions in front of senior process development decision-makers actively looking for them.
Join Biopharma Experts
Connect with the cell therapy process development community spanning early clinical to commercial stage across two days of dedicated networking.