At the forefront of cell therapy revolution; exits 2020 in rude health

What MaxCyte does

() is developing an experimental targeted cancer treatment but also licenses out the technology to larger biotechs and pharma companies, including the international giant Inc (), to aid their discovery processes.

’s CARMA platform is being used to develop some of the first drug candidates that use the company’s own immune system to fight solid tumours.

Its lead candidate, MCY-M11 is what’s known as a chimeric antigen receptor – CAR therapy – that gives T-cells the new ability to target a specific protein.

T-cells are part of the immune system and circulate around our bodies, scanning for cellular abnormalities and infections.

How it is doing

In March, MaxCyte said its 2021 revenue growth is likely to accelerate after it weighed in with a better than expected performance for the year just gone.

The cell engineering specialist said turnover for the 12 months ended December 31, 2020, advanced by 21% to US$26.2mln – a rise it attributed to the “increasing adoption and use” of its technology.

The numbers were also buoyed by the launch of an expanded ExPERT range of disposables.

Cash and equivalents at the year-end were a very healthy US$34.8mln following the company’s successful US$30.5mln financing last May.

MaxCyte, which plans to list on Nasdaq this year, is entitled to milestone payments from drug development companies where its technology is integral to the development of a new treatment.

It is now involved with 140 programmes that could yield in excess of US$950mln.

Looking ahead, the life sciences group told investors it expected revenue growth to crank up a gear, driven by existing partners’ clinical progress and the “conversion of burgeoning strategic partnership pipeline”.

What the boss says: Doug Doerfler, chief executive

“The board is confident regarding the outlook for the company and we look forward to building on MaxCyte’s strong operational foundation and performance of about 25% compound annual revenue growth over the past five years.

“Cell-based therapies continue to demonstrate tremendous promise in the treatment of patients with intractable disease and we believe MaxCyte’s next-generation technology is uniquely placed to enable the development of these therapies.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMzC44ahzVs

Inflexion points:

• Spinout of CARMA Cell Therapy arm via a NASDAQ-listing
• Expansion strategy
• Company plans to list on Nasdaq in 2021

What the analyst says – Emma Ulker

“MaxCyte has confirmed that its CARMA Cell Therapies subsidiary will expand its phase I clinical trial of MCY-M11, its differentiated lead cell therapy candidate currently in first-in-human studies for advanced solid cancers.”

“This is a natural progression based on promising preliminary data from the study presented at the virtual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in May.”

“The expansion of the study will add a new parallel cohort, that will receive preconditioning treatment and this factor plus the extension of the trial to include multiple treatment cycles are factors that can potentially enhance the efficacy of MCY-M11.”

Read Emma’s latest update here

Analyst Video