MaxCyte and Allogene Therapeutics Sign Clinical and Commercial License Agreement

• Agreement enables Allogene, a pioneer in the development of AlloCAR T^TM therapies for cancer, to utilize MaxCyte’s ExPERT™ platform in target candidates

GAITHERSBURG, MD, and SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA, 24 March 2020 — MaxCyte, Inc., (LSE: MXCT), a global cell-based therapies and life sciences company, and Allogene Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALLO), a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of allogeneic CAR T (AlloCAR T™) therapies for cancer, today announced a clinical and commercial license agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Allogene gains rights to use MaxCyte’s Flow Electroporation® technology and ExPERT™ platform to develop and advance its AlloCAR T^TM candidates through to commercialization. In return, MaxCyte will receive undisclosed development, approval and commercial milestones in addition to other licensing fees. The first two Allogene investigational therapies intended to utilize this validated gene editing and advanced proprietary cell manufacturing technology are directed at CD19 and BCMA targets.

MaxCyte’s ExPERT instrument family represents the next generation of leading, clinically validated, electroporation technology for complex and scalable cellular engineering. By delivering high transfection efficiency with enhanced functionality, the ExPERT platform delivers the high-end performance essential to enable the next wave of biological and cellular therapeutics. Allogene intends to deploy the MaxCyte technology to effect the gene editing steps during the production process. The closed system and high efficiency make it an ideal addition for GMP operations.

“MaxCyte’s ExPERT platform has become the industry standard in electroporation technology and allows us to increase efficiency and improve yield, which is a critical component to the value proposition of our AlloCAR T^TM therapies,” said Alison Moore, Ph.D., Chief Technical Officer of Allogene. 

Doug Doerfler, President & CEO of MaxCyte, said: “We’re honored to partner with Allogene to help unlock the full potential of its next-generation allogeneic CAR T therapies through utilization of our Flow Electroporation® technology and ExPERT™ platform.”

About MaxCyte

MaxCyte is a clinical-stage global cell-based therapies and life sciences company applying its proprietary cell engineering platform to deliver the advances of cell-based medicine to patients with high unmet medical needs. Through its life sciences business, MaxCyte biopharmaceutical partners leverage the Company’s Flow Electroporation® Technology  to advance the development of innovative, transformative  medicines, particularly in cell therapy. MaxCyte has placed its technology worldwide, including with all of the top ten global biopharmaceutical companies. The Company now has more than 100 partnered programme licenses in cell therapy with more than 70 licensed for clinical use. The Company has now entered into nine clinical/commercial license partnerships with leading cell therapy developers and the potential pre-commercial milestones from these relationships now significantly exceeds $650 million. With its robust delivery technology platform, MaxCyte helps its partners to unlock the full potential of their therapeutic products. MaxCyte is also developing novel CARMA therapies, with its first drug candidate in a Phase I clinical trial. CARMA is MaxCyte’s mRNA-based proprietary therapeutic platform for autologous cell therapy for the treatment of solid cancers. MaxCyte has established CARMA Cell Therapies as a wholly owned subsidiary to facilitate independent investment and new partnerships to advance the CARMA platform. For more information, visit www.maxcyte.com.

About Allogene Therapeutics

Allogene Therapeutics, with headquarters in South San Francisco, is a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor T cell (AlloCAR T™) therapies for cancer. Led by a world-class management team with significant experience in cell therapy, Allogene is developing a pipeline of “off-the-shelf” CAR T cell therapy candidates with the goal of delivering readily available cell therapy on-demand, more reliably, and at greater scale to more patients. For more information, please visit www.allogene.com, and follow @AllogeneTx on Twitter and LinkedIn.