Recruits Lab places cell therapy talent across discovery, CMC, clinical, regulatory, and commercial functions for autologous and allogeneic programs. 14-day average hires.
Cell therapy is one of the youngest and most fast-moving therapeutic modalities in biotech. The talent pool is genuinely small, the operational requirements are unique (vein-to-vein logistics, fresh-versus-frozen process, autologous batch-of-one economics), and a single weak hire in CMC, manufacturing, or clinical can set a program back two quarters.
Recruits Lab places cell therapy talent across CAR-T, TCR-T, NK cell, TIL, regulatory T cell, and allogeneic programs. Our practice spans Scientist through Director and VP levels in discovery, translational, CMC, manufacturing, clinical operations, regulatory, and quality.
Our recruiters understand the distinctions that matter — autologous process leaders who have actually scaled batch-of-one operations versus those who have only worked allogeneic, clinical operations leaders with real apheresis-site coordination experience versus those without, and quality leaders who have hosted a successful PAI for a cell therapy product versus those who have not. We screen for direct cell therapy ownership.
Most cell therapy searches at venture-backed companies struggle because the candidate pool is concentrated at a handful of public cell therapy companies and CDMOs. Generalist firms cannot map that pool effectively. We do it routinely, including for stealth-mode and confidential searches.
Subscription pricing is what makes specialized cell therapy search affordable for venture-backed teams building multi-role programs.
Why this market is hard to recruit for. And how we solve each one.
These are operationally distinct. Autologous batch-of-one process is not interchangeable with allogeneic scaled manufacturing. We map candidates to your modality.
Autologous clinical operations require apheresis site coordination experience. We screen for it directly.
Cell therapy QA is its own world. We screen for direct cell therapy QA experience.
Cell therapy manufacturing scale-up is unique. We screen for true scale-up ownership.
BLA filings for cell therapy products are different from small molecule or biologic. We screen for direct cell therapy regulatory experience.
Senior cell therapy talent is in extreme short supply. We manage offer and resign conversations directly.
The repeatable system behind our 14-day average hire time.
We run a deep intake call with hiring managers and scientific leadership covering technical must-haves, dealbreakers, comp band, equity philosophy, and the cultural traits that predict success in your specific stage and program.
We build a fresh map of 80-150 qualified candidates from direct competitors, academic spinouts, CROs, and adjacent therapeutic areas. No database scraping — real research from a recruiter who understands the science.
Personalized outreach from a senior recruiter who can actually discuss your molecule, mechanism, or modality. Response rates run 3-5x higher than generalist agencies because the first message reads like it came from another scientist.
Five to eight vetted candidates with structured profile briefs covering technical fit, motivation, publication record where relevant, comp expectations, and risk factors. Not a resume dump — a decision document.
We manage offer construction, counter-offer scenarios, resign coaching, and start-date negotiation. Every placement carries a 90-day replacement guarantee at no additional fee.
Original observations from live searches in this specialty.
Fewer than 200 people in the U.S. have run scaled autologous batch-of-one process operations end-to-end. Databases will not surface them. We maintain a hand-built map, refreshed every quarter, of who owns which node — apheresis, transduction, expansion, cryopreservation, release.
The single interview question that separates real autologous clinical operations leaders from resume-strong candidates is a live walk-through of a vein-to-vein timeline for a failed dose. Candidates who cannot narrate site-side apheresis failure recovery, chain-of-custody exceptions, and reslot logistics have not actually done the work.
Allogeneic scale-out hiring competes with biologics manufacturing talent, not autologous cell therapy talent. Roles look similar on paper but the candidate pool, comp expectations, and cultural fit are meaningfully different — we surface those differences in intake, not after a failed shortlist.
2026 U.S. base salary ranges for cell therapy roles at venture-backed and mid-cap life sciences companies. Excludes equity, bonus, and sign-on. Ranges reflect Series A through commercial-stage benchmarks.
| Role | Base Salary Range |
|---|---|
| Senior Scientist, Cell Therapy | $165K–$215K |
| Principal Scientist, Cell Therapy | $195K–$255K |
| Director, Cell Therapy Process Dev | $245K–$315K |
| Director, Cell Therapy Manufacturing | $245K–$320K |
| Director, Cell Therapy Quality | $245K–$315K |
| VP, Cell Therapy CMC | $330K–$435K |
| Chief Technology Officer, Cell Therapy | $425K–$580K |
Source: Recruits Lab 2026 Life Sciences Compensation dataset.
Quick answers to the questions founders and hiring leaders ask most.
Cell therapy recruiters source, screen, and qualify scientists and leaders across discovery, CMC, manufacturing, clinical, regulatory, and quality for autologous and allogeneic cell therapy programs. Recruits Lab specializes in cell therapy and averages 14 days from kickoff to offer.
Industry average for director and VP-level cell therapy is 120 to 200 days. Recruits Lab averages 14 days.
Yes. Both are core practice areas with separate candidate maps and modality-specific recruiters.
Subscription starts at $7,500 per month with unlimited active roles. Contingency is a flat 20 percent with a 90-day guarantee.
Yes. Multi-hire builds across process, manufacturing, quality, and clinical are routine engagements.
Director of Cell Therapy Manufacturing with batch-of-one scale-up experience needed ahead of BLA. Two retained firms had failed across seven months.
Mapped 22 autologous manufacturing leaders nationally including CDMO leads. Senior recruiter ran outbound, presented a four-person shortlist in 13 days.
Offer accepted in 23 days. Manufacturing capacity scaled ahead of BLA filing.
"Recruits Lab understood the science from day one. They sent four interview-ready candidates inside two weeks after our internal team had spent three months on the role."
"Their subscription model let us close three scientific hires in a single quarter for less than what a single retained search would have cost us."
Yes. TIL and TCR-T are part of the cell therapy practice.
Yes. Treg programs are a growing part of the practice.
Yes. Clinical operations with apheresis experience is a routine search profile.
Yes. Cell therapy CDMO leadership and technical staff are part of the practice.
Yes. NK and CAR-NK programs are part of the practice.
Cell therapy hiring skews toward process, apheresis logistics, and batch-of-one operations expertise. Gene therapy hiring skews toward vector engineering, viral manufacturing, and CMC. See our Gene Therapy Recruiters page for that specialty, or the Cell & Gene Therapy Recruiters pillar for combined leadership searches.
Every placement carries a 90-day replacement guarantee. If a hire leaves or does not work out within the first 90 days, we run the search again at no additional fee.
Yes. We sign NDAs and routinely run confidential and stealth-mode searches for executive replacements, sensitive program leads, and pre-launch hires.
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