Gilead expands CAR-T deal with MaxCyte, Precision files for $100m IPO

It has been a busy month already in the field of CAR-T therapy, with Gilead expanding a partnership with MaxCyte, and Precision BioSciences filing for a $100 million IPO for its ‘off-the-shelf’ cancer cell therapies. Gilead’s subsidiary Kite Pharma has revised a deal with London-listed MaxCyte to apply its transfection technology to up to 10 targets. MaxCyte engineers its CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor T-cell) therapies without using viruses, unlike many of its rivals and the two already approved treatments in this class. The company has developed a technology that uses an electrical field to reverse the permeability of cell membranes. This means that molecules, such as the human messenger RNA used in-house by MaxCyte, can pass into the cell and modify its internal workings without using viruses or chemicals. The idea is to shorten or simplify the production process, and reduces costs – something that is proving to be a major problem for the CAR-Ts approved so far.