MaxCyte® Inc., the pioneer in cell therapies using scalable, high-performance cell transfection systems, today announces a strategic research collaboration with Johns Hopkins University (JHU) to develop unique Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, which harness patients’ own immune systems to combat cancers.

MaxCyte’s unique approach to CAR cell therapy allows targeting of solid tumor cancers by enabling control over the on-target, off-tumor toxicity, which limits other CAR therapies to hematological cancers. MaxCyte achieves this by introducing the CAR construct as a transiently expressing messenger RNA (mRNA), thus allowing control of the duration of expression and toxicity against target antigens in normal tissue. This unique approach also avoids the cell expansion step required for standard approaches, dramatically reducing manufacturing time and expense for CAR therapies from days or weeks to a matter of hours.

The preclinical work performed in collaboration with JHU will support a future planned Investigational New Drug (IND) filing for a CAR therapy targeting a broad range of solid tumors. No financial terms are disclosed.

“We are truly excited to be collaborating with Johns Hopkins, one of the leading hospitals in the world, in the development of this next-generation CAR therapy,” said Doug Doerfler, President & CEO of MaxCyte, Inc. “The combination of Johns Hopkins’ world renowned research and clinical development capabilities and MaxCyte’s unique product development capabilities will enable the rapidly advancing area of CAR therapies to move into the clinic in solid tumors in a platform that provides rapid, cost-effective manufacture of Cellular Therapeutics.”