CARVYKTI Growth Deceleration Could Test Johnson & Johnson Stock

Multiply Labs announced a $75 million Series B round, bringing its total capital raised to over $100 million since its founding in 2016. The round was led by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong with NantWorks, joined by new investors AstraZeneca, Lingotto, Teradyne, and Strange Ventures, alongside returning investors Casdin Capital, Lux Capital, Fifty Years, Ora Global, and Founders Fund. The San Francisco-based physical AI company automates biologics manufacturing with robotic clusters that integrate into existing instruments and processes without requiring a new facility, delivering a 74% reduction in cost per dose and up to 100 times more throughput than manual manufacturing. Beginning with cell and gene therapy and now expanding to advanced biologics including antibodies, viral vectors, and mRNA, the platform is owned and operated directly by pharmaceutical and biologics companies rather than run as an outsourced service. Multiply Labs will use the capital to expand manufacturing capacity, accelerate its product roadmap, and scale its team across engineering, regulatory, and commercial functions as it moves from clinical-stage deployments toward commercial-scale production.

British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced on the 5th that it will invest more than $1 billion in the eastern state of Massachusetts as part of a total $50 billion US investment plan. The company expects to increase its Massachusetts workforce by more than 50% over the next several years. It has already opened a new research and development center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and at the 570,000-square-foot, 18-story facility built in Kendall Square, it will focus on developing treatments for cancer, chronic diseases and rare diseases, as well as research into cell therapies. Together with a nearby genomic medicine site, about 2,000 researchers and scientists will work there, and the new research center features 10 floors of laboratories equipped with robotics, automation and artificial intelligence. The Cambridge site joins the company's other major research center in Gaithersburg, Maryland. AstraZeneca operates 24 research, manufacturing, sales and headquarters sites in the United States and employs more than 25,000 people there.

The fair value estimate for Iovance Biotherapeutics has been raised to US$12.80 per share from US$10.00, according to Simply Wall St. The revision reflects stronger expectations for the Amtagvi launch, margin trends and upcoming data, with the revenue growth assumption shifting from 43.38% to 45.57% and the net profit margin assumption moving from 9.50% to 12.09%. H.C. Wainwright lifted its price target to US$20 from US$9, citing FY26 total revenue guidance of US$410m to US$420m tied to U.S. demand for Amtagvi and Proleukin, while Wells Fargo moved to US$18 from US$14 and Goldman Sachs pointed to an inflection in the Amtagvi launch and easing logistical challenges. Barclays flagged durability in second line lung cancer for lifileucel ahead of IOV-LUN-202 data, while UBS, which raised its target to US$7 from US$4 and remains Neutral, noted that a strong Amtagvi quarter and gross margin of 56% came alongside a 74% rally in the stock. The valuation model's future P/E multiple changed from 75.55x to 72.80x and the discount rate moved from 7.47% to 7.50%.

The global cell and gene therapy biomanufacturing market is projected to grow from $12.35 billion in 2025 to $13.83 billion in 2026, a compound annual growth rate of 12%, and to reach $21.46 billion by 2030 at a compound annual growth rate of 11.6% from 2026, according to the Cell and Gene Therapy Bio-Manufacturing Market Global Report 2026 added to ResearchAndMarkets.com. Growth is being driven by the increasing commercialization of cell and gene therapies, demand for scalable viral vector production, wider adoption of personalized medicine, and expansion among contract development and manufacturing organizations, alongside automation, digitalization, and investment in modern biomanufacturing facilities. The report cites the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy's finding that the number of gene therapies in Phase III development increased by 10% during the fourth quarter of 2023 compared with the previous quarter, the first quarterly increase since the third quarter of 2022. In May 2026, Andelyn Biosciences launched its LVV Curator platform to streamline lentiviral vector manufacturing, using a modular, prevalidated framework based on Curator methodology previously applied across more than 100 adeno-associated virus programs. In January 2024, Oxford Biomedica plc acquired ABL Europe SAS for $17.35 million, expanding its manufacturing presence in Europe and its viral vector development and production services. North America was the largest cell and gene therapy biomanufacturing market in 2025, while Asia-Pacific is forecast to be the fastest-growing region; companies featured include Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Merck KGaA, Lonza Group AG, and Samsung Biologics Co. Ltd.

Bristol-Myers Squibb announced on September 8 positive Phase 2 results from its registrational QUINTESSENTIAL trial of arlocabtagene autoleucel, or arlo-cel, in adult patients with quadruple-class exposed relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma. The trial met its primary endpoint, showing a statistically significant and clinically meaningful overall response rate along with strong complete response rates in heavily pretreated patients who had received three or more prior lines of therapy, and the safety profile was consistent with existing CAR T and GPRC5D-targeting therapies. The readout comes as BMS works to expand its Growth Portfolio against mature-brand erosion; in the second quarter the company reported a 6% revenue increase to $13.0 billion, with Growth Portfolio revenues up 15% to $7.6 billion, and management raised full-year 2026 revenue guidance to $49.0 to $50.0 billion and non-GAAP EPS expectations to $6.75 to $7.00. The company still faces generic competition in its Legacy Portfolio, which fell 4% to $5.4 billion in the quarter, while full-year operating expenses are projected at $16.5 billion and non-GAAP gross margins contracted from 72.6% to 71.4%. BMS said arlo-cel provides a potentially differentiated cell therapy platform to address severe unmet needs in oncology.