Fig. 1

The trend of GCT clinical development by different categories in China. a GCT products of three categories across various therapy types by different development phases until March 2021. b Disease areas and indications for GCT therapies. Disease areas (oncology or non-oncology) of GCT pipelines of all three categories and general tumor types (hematologic or solid tumors) of indications of pipelines targeting oncology areas. More specific tumor types can be found in Additional file 1: Tab S1 and S2. c Target distribution of ex vivo therapies aiming at cancers. d Comparison of three categories of GCT agents undergoing IND trials and IITs, the clinical development of which initiated during 2000–2017 and 2017–2021 (including 2017 and until March 2021). The agent undergoing IND means it has registered at least one clinical trial in CDE Registration and Information Disclosure Platform, and the agent undergoing IITs means it only conducted IITs. We chose 2017 as a dividing time, as the “cell therapy guideline” issued in 2017