Ori Biotech weighs moving some manufacturing to China, CEO tells Meeting on the Mesa panel

Ori Biotech is considering moving some of its manufacturing to China so that its cell and gene therapy manufacturing technology can compete on price there, CEO Jason Foster said on a panel on China and the future of global cell and gene therapy development at the Cell & Gene Meeting on the Mesa in Phoenix on Tuesday, October 6, 2026.

Foster said Ori makes its instruments and consumables in the UK at “a price point that works for Western markets, but probably doesn’t work for Chinese markets”. Taking some manufacturing into China is “something we’re considering”, Foster said, adding: “I’m not saying this is definitely going to happen.” A “China for China manufacturing model could be China for the globe” if it drives down costs, Foster said, while stressing it was “not set in stone”.

“Can I afford to ignore 40% of the global market? I’m not sure I can,” Foster said.

The panel was chaired by Eytan Abraham, chief commercial and technology officer of Minaris Advanced Therapies, with Devyn Smith, CEO of Arbor Biotechnologies, and Lijun Wang, founder and CEO of CoJourney.

Much of the discussion turned on China’s new rules for clinical research on new biomedical technologies, State Council Decree No. 818, which took effect on May 1, 2026. The regulation limits that research to Grade 3A hospitals, bars charging participants, and requires a study to be paused for ethics review after a serious adverse reaction.

Foster saw in the new rules “a really big opportunity to bring manufacturing closer to the patient”.

“I still think it’s faster in China,” Foster said, even with the higher bar. Ori deployed its technology with a partner in China in December, before the new rules took effect, Foster said, and “we dosed our first patient in May, four and a half months.” In May, Ori and Shanghai-based ImmuXell Biotech announced the first patient dosed in an investigator-initiated trial of ImmuXell’s TCR-T cell therapy made on Ori’s IRO platform.

For a small biotech, Smith said, China is “the opportunity, it’s also a threat”. Arbor looked at running a study in China and decided against it, Smith said, because “we talked to 20 different people out there to get 20 different answers”. “It just felt a little bit too wild, wild west for us,” Smith said.

Smith said Arbor’s initial estimates from US contract manufacturers “were like two and a half times higher than China”, and that “sticking your head in the sand is not going to help”.

Wang said CoJourney, as a contract manufacturer, had to keep innovating in China because “if I don’t, I may not be in existence in three years”. With China’s reimbursement system, “only the very basics get covered”, Wang said, describing a mission on returning to China: “I’ve got to make it affordable, accessible.”

“So, are you competing against the wheel of history, or are you just trying to get on that?” Wang asked.

About the panelists’ companies

Ori Biotech is a cell and gene therapy manufacturing technology company with offices in London and Philadelphia; it says its IRO platform launched commercially in December 2024. Arbor Biotechnologies develops gene editing therapies, led by ABO-101 for primary hyperoxaluria type 1, for which it says it advanced a US IND, with ALS programs in IND-enabling studies.

CoJourney is a gene therapy contract development and manufacturing organization with GMP facilities in Hangzhou, China, and a US office in Horsham, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia-based Minaris Advanced Therapies was formed in 2025 when Altaris Capital Partners combined Minaris Regenerative Medicine and WuXi Advanced Therapies.

Onyx previously covered Arbor’s Innovation Spotlight at this year’s meeting and the CBER director’s remarks on China-style systems.

Sources: “China and the Future of Global Cell and Gene Therapy Development” panel, Cell & Gene Meeting on the Mesa, October 6, 2026; Cell & Gene Meeting on the Mesa agenda; State Council Decree No. 818, regulation text and Ministry of Justice and National Health Commission Q&A; Ori Biotech and ImmuXell Biotech press release, May 27, 2026; Ori Biotech about page; Arbor Biotechnologies pipeline; CoJourney home and about pages; Minaris Advanced Therapies company history