MaxCyte Inc (LON:MXCT) (LON:MXCL) has 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”.
"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,” said chief executive Doug Doerfler in a statement.
“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."
Separately, MaxCyte revealed that it has decided the future direction of the CARMA Cell Therapies operation. It said it will focus on out-licensing CARMA platform manufacturing processes and intellectual property without further investment; this its first therapeutic candidate, MCY-M11.
“We believe strongly in the value that we have built in the CARMA platform and MCY-M11 and, although we have capped our intended investment in CARMA, we look forward to developing potential licensing opportunities for this valuable IP,” said CEO Doerfler.
The cost of the strategic change is put at roughly US$4mln.