Releases Details

Biotech industry veteran to lead alliance-building efforts for MaxCyte’s proprietary CARMA platform

Gaithersburg, Maryland – November 2, 2016 – MaxCyte, Inc., a developer and supplier of cell engineering products and services to biopharmaceutical firms engaged in cell therapy, drug discovery and development, biomanufacturing, gene editing and immuno-oncology, announced that Debra K. Bowes has joined the Company as Executive Vice President, Business and Strategic Development. Ms. Bowes has more than 25 years’ experience in corporate strategy, licensing and in the creation of partnerships to advance the development and commercialization of biopharmaceutical products, with a main emphasis in oncology.

Before coming to MaxCyte, Ms. Bowes was interim President and Chief Executive Officer of CapGenesis Pharma, in Bethesda, MD. Previously, she served as President and Founder of Chevy Chase BioPartners, LLC, a strategic planning consultancy, as well as in leadership positions at CBLI Pharmaceuticals, MedImmune, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Centocor and Hybritech. She also has served as national president of Women in Bio. Ms. Bowes is a Master’s Degree candidate at Johns Hopkins University, and has a B.S. in cell biology from the University of Cincinnati.

“We’re excited to have Deb Bowes join our team at what is an important inflection point for MaxCyte and our CARMA-based programs,” said MaxCyte President & CEO Doug Doerfler. “We are advancing our collaborative research programs with CARMA, and are seeking new alliances in this space. Deb will be an invaluable member of our team focused, in particular, on relationships with partners to further develop potential new immuno-oncology drug candidates.”

In her new role at MaxCyte, Ms. Bowes will lead the strategic planning and execution of all business development activities related to MaxCyte’s CARMA-based programs. CARMA, MaxCyte’s proprietary cell engineering platform technology, allows simple and rapid manufacture of advanced cancer treatments that utilize a patient’s own immune system and is differentiated from traditional chimeric antigen receptor (“CAR”) therapy due to its use of mRNA to engineer immune cells delivered back into a patient.

“It’s exciting for me to be joining the MaxCyte team,” said Ms. Bowes. “I’ve spent the bulk of my career in corporate strategy, product positioning and alliance development within oncology and my new role allows me to leverage these skills for MaxCyte.”

About the CARMA Platform

Researchers are investigating the use of CARMA, the Company’s patented approach to CAR, to generate the next class of immunotherapy for cancer, aiming to improve patient outcomes for both solid and liquid tumor types. CARMA-engineered immune cells seek and destroy cancer cells with the potential to deliver precise therapies for patients against a range of cancers, without the cost and complexity of centralized manufacturing and adverse effects seen in first-generation, viral-based CAR therapies. MaxCyte believes that the promising preclinical results obtained from the collaboration with The Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, along with further studies, will result in an investigational new drug (“IND”) filing with the US Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) in 2017 for patients with ovarian cancer. The Company continues to explore new targets and additional collaborators to advance the CARMA platform.

About MaxCyte

MaxCyte is an established and revenue generating US-based developer and supplier of cell engineering products and services to biopharmaceutical firms engaged in cell therapy, drug discovery and development, biomanufacturing, gene editing and immuno-oncology markets. The Company’s patented flow electroporation technology enables its products to deliver fast, reliable and scalable cell engineering to drive the research and clinical development of a new generation of medicines.

MaxCyte’s high performance platform allows transfection with any molecule or multiple molecules and is compatible with nearly all cell types, including hard-to-transfect human primary cells. It also provides a high degree of consistency and minimal cell disturbance, thereby facilitating rapid, large scale, clinical and commercial grade cell engineering in a non-viral system and with low toxicity concerns. The Company’s cell engineering technology platform is CE-marked and FDA-accredited, providing MaxCyte’s customers and partners with an established regulatory path.

Using the unique capabilities of its technology, MaxCyte is developing CARMA, its proprietary platform in immuno-oncology, to deliver a validated non-viral approach to CAR therapies across a broad range of cancer indications, including solid tumors where existing CAR-T approaches face significant challenges.

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