MaxCyte, a company specialising in cell engineering technologies, has entered a strategic platform licence (SPL) agreement with Kamau Therapeutics, a clinical-stage company focused on stem cell therapy gene correction, to speed up the development of cell therapeutics for genetic diseases.

Kamau Therapeutics will gain non-exclusive research, clinical and commercial rights to utilise MaxCyte's Flow Electroporation technology and ExPERT platform to support its homology-directed repair (HDR) novel gene correction technology.

In exchange, MaxCyte will receive annual licensing fees along with programme-related revenue.

Kamau's approach to therapy development involves high-efficiency targeted gene integration, to build a new class of treatments to cure a range of serious and life-threatening diseases such as sickle cell disease (SCD).

Its platform, based on HDR editing, builds upon first-generation CRISPR-Cas9 technology. This technique not only cuts DNA but also provides a DNA template.

MaxCyte CEO and president Maher Masoud stated: “Bringing this groundbreaking gene therapy research into the clinic requires a robust manufacturing process and the ability to scale.

“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 optimise 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.”

Kamau co-founder Matthew Porteus said: “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.

“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.”

Kamau's lead investigational programme, nula-cel, which is based on HDR editing, is currently in clinical development for SCD.

The ExPERT platform, MaxCyte's electroporation technology, is designed to support the growing cell therapy market. It offers high transfection efficiency and scalability, which are critical for the production of next-generation cell-based therapeutics.

The ExPERT platform includes products such as the ATx, STx, GTx, and VLx instruments, along with proprietary processing assemblies, disposables and software protocols, all backed by a global intellectual property portfolio.

The link with Kamau is MaxCyte's 29th clinical/commercial partnership.

Each partnership typically generates pre-commercial milestone revenue, with a significant portion coming from programme-related revenue.

In 2023, MaxCyte entered an SPL agreement with biotechnology company Catamaran Bio to support chimeric antigen receptor-NK cell therapy programmes.