MaxCyte, Inc.,, a leading, cell-engineering focused company providing enabling platform technologies to advance the discovery, development and commercialization of next-generation cell-based therapeutics and innovative bioprocessing applications, and Kamau Therapeutics, a clinical-stage stem cell therapy gene correction company, announced they are entering into a strategic platform license (SPL) agreement.
Under the terms of the agreement, Kamau obtains non-exclusive research, clinical and commercial rights to use MaxCyte’s Flow Electroporation technology and ExPERT platform. In return, MaxCyte is entitled to receive annual licensing fees and program-related revenue.
Kamau is a clinical-stage, next-generation gene correction company harnessing high efficiency targeted gene integration to develop a new class of therapies with the aim to cure a wide range of serious and life-threatening diseases, such as sickle cell disease (SCD). The company’s platform, which is founded on homology-directed repair (HDR) editing, builds on first generation CRISPR-Cas9 technology by not only cutting DNA but providing a template to repair DNA. HDR now forms the basis for Kamau’s lead investigational program, nula-cel, which is in clinical development for SCD.
“Bringing this groundbreaking gene therapy research into the clinic requires a robust manufacturing process and the ability to scale,” said Maher Masoud, President and CEO of MaxCyte. “By partnering with us, Kamau gains access to our commercially validated Flow Electroporation technology as well as technical, regulatory and scientific support. This enables them to optimize their clinical manufacturing process, mitigate risks and expedite the progression of their lead product candidate through clinical phases to deliver this potential cure to patients living with SCD.”
“HDR overcomes prior limitations in specificity, efficiency and durability of gene editing to offer broad potential for transforming human health outcomes through the delivery of one-time curative cell therapies,” said Matthew Porteus, MD, PhD, Co-Founder of Kamau. “Through our collaboration with MaxCyte and the use of their proven non-viral platform, our goal is to treat or cure a range of serious genetic diseases with unmet medical needs using homology-directed repair.”
MaxCyte’s ExPERT instrument portfolio is the next generation of leading, clinically and commercially validated electroporation technology for complex and scalable cell engineering. By delivering high transfection efficiency, seamless scalability and enhanced functionality, the ExPERT platform delivers the high-end performance essential to enabling the next wave of biological and cellular therapeutics. Kamau Therapeutics is MaxCyte’s 29th clinical/commercial partnership overall; each partnership generates pre-commercial milestone revenue, the vast majority of which includes program-related revenue.