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MaxCyte revenues grow 30%; on track to beat City forecasts

Published: 07:30 24 Jan 2017 GMT

CancerHeadline_5887037b3b96b
MaxCyte is developing a technology that will help a patient's own body fight cancer

MaxCyte Inc (LON:MXCT) said drug discovery and development companies are increasingly adopting its technology as it reported revenue growth in excess of 30% to US$12.2mln for the year just gone.

This strong financial performance, coupled with lower than expected research and development costs, means the loss for the period is likely to be smaller than expected.

It said it is on track to deliver “strong” top-line growth in the current year.

"We have continued to make significant progress across all areas of the business and have achieved for the second year in a row a consecutive 30% year-on-year revenue growth,” said chief executive Doug Doerfler.

MaxCyte is essentially two companies in one: It sells and licenses its cell engineering technology to some of the world’s largest pharma and biotechnology companies. This part of the business generated the sales.

And it is also using said technology to develop treatments for cancer that incite the body’s own immune system to tackle the killer disease. That’s a hot area at the moment.

It has developed a technology called CARMA, which is funded from its income and cash reserves.

This is being developed to tackle cancer and it is hoped the platform will be spawn the next-generation immuno-oncology treatments that use the body’s own immune system to fight the disease.

What’s new and innovative, even for this very new and innovative strand of research, is that CARMA is being designed to grapple with solid tumours.

The breakthroughs in this field, such as CAR T-cell immuno-therapies, fight blood-borne illness, and yet 90% of cancers are solid tumours.

Early results from pre-clinical research carried out by the world famous Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore have been encouraging. It also has a collaboration with Washington University in St. Louis.

MaxCyte's proprietary technology is now uniquely positioned as an enabler for the clinical application of cutting-edge treatments in immuno-oncology and gene editing,” said CEO Doerfler.

“The latter was recently underlined with published results from our collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases showing that we can now repair a defective gene in stem cells from patients with a rare immunodeficiency disorder.

“We view this as highly significant and valuable to the company and look forward to the future with great confidence."

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