MaxCyte, Inc., (Nasdaq: MXCT; LSE: MXCT), 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 Imugene, (ASX: IMU), a clinical-stage immuno-oncology and cell therapy company developing a range of new treatments that seek to activate the immune system of cancer patients to identify and eradicate tumors, today announced the signing of a strategic platform license (SPL).

Under the terms of the agreement, Imugene obtains non-exclusive clinical and commercial rights to use MaxCyte’s Flow Electroporation® technology and ExPERT™ platform. In return, MaxCyte is entitled to receive platform licensing fees and program-related revenue.

Imugene, which has offices in the United States and Australia, is focused on developing transformative cancer medicines to improve patients’ lives. Its unique technology platforms are designed to harness and promote the body’s immune system against tumors. Imugene’s product pipeline includes an off-the-shelf (allogeneic) cell therapy CAR T drug called azer-cel (azercabtagene zapreleucel) that targets CD19 to attack blood cancer, as well as an oncolytic virus and B-cell immunotherapies aimed at treating a variety of cancers in combination with standard-of-care medicines and immunotherapies. Azer-cel is currently being evaluated in an ongoing multi-center Phase 1b CAR T clinical trial in patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.

“By leveraging our scalable cell-engineering process and optimized clinical manufacturing workflow, Imugene is rapidly moving towards a potential Phase 2 registrational trial for azer-cel in cancer,” said Maher Masoud, President and CEO of MaxCyte. “Our technology has been integral to the manufacturing of the allogeneic T-cell immunotherapies and was efficiently transferred from Precision Biosciences when Imugene obtained global rights for azer-cel from Precision in August 2023. With our new partnership, we will continue to support the development of azer-cel along with additional novel cell therapy programs.”

“Imugene is passionate about bringing effective new treatments and options to cancer patients,” said Leslie Chong, CEO and Managing Director at Imugene. “We were able to make a seamless transition from Precision and finalized optimization of our processes for GMP manufacturing of azer-cel in our state-of-the-art facility in North Carolina using MaxCyte’s technology, giving us the ability to scale and move forward quickly with this drug product in the future.”

MaxCyte’s ExPERT™ instrument portfolio is the next generation of leading, clinically validated electroporation technology for complex and scalable cell engineering. The ExPERT™ platform delivers the high-end performance essential to enabling the next wave of biological and cellular therapeutics by providing high transfection efficiency, seamless scalability and enhanced functionality. Imugene is MaxCyte’s 25^th SPL overall, which generates pre-commercial milestone revenue, the vast majority of which includes post-commercial revenue.