Cell Engineering Partnership: MaxCyte's Electroporation Technology Powers Moonlight Bio's Solid Tumor T Cell Pipeline

Strategic Collaboration Unlocks GMP-Ready Manufacturing for Next-Generation Immunotherapies

MaxCyte and Moonlight Bio have formalized a groundbreaking Strategic Platform License agreement that positions advanced cell-engineering capabilities at the forefront of cancer immunotherapy development. Under this collaboration, the Seattle-based biotech firm will leverage MaxCyte’s proven Flow Electroporation® technology alongside the ExPERT™ platform to scale manufacturing of its engineered T cell therapy candidates designed to tackle solid tumors—a particularly challenging frontier in oncology.

Why This Partnership Matters for T Cell Therapy Development

Solid tumors represent one of the industry’s most persistent challenges for cellular immunotherapy. Traditional CAR-T approaches, while successful in hematologic malignancies, face significant hurdles in reaching and penetrating dense tumor microenvironments. Moonlight Bio’s research addresses this gap through advanced gene-editing techniques, and MaxCyte’s established electroporation platform provides the manufacturing backbone to transition from research to clinical reality.

The ExPERT™ platform brings established regulatory precedent and GMP-compliance validation—critical advantages when navigating the complex approval pathway for cell therapies. This de-risks manufacturing scale-up considerably, enabling Moonlight Bio to focus engineering efforts on optimizing therapeutic potency rather than troubleshooting manufacturing challenges.

The Technical and Commercial Framework

Under the licensing agreement, Moonlight Bio secures non-exclusive research, development, and commercialization rights to both the Flow Electroporation® technology and ExPERT™ ecosystem. The financial structure involves annual licensing fees coupled with program-specific revenue milestones, aligning both parties’ incentives around successful clinical progression.

Maher Masoud, President and CEO of MaxCyte, emphasized that this partnership exemplifies their platform’s adaptability: “Our globally supported, GMP-ready and regulatory-proven infrastructure is engineered to accelerate both clinical and commercial manufacturing phases while enabling robust, scalable cell engineering.” This positions MaxCyte’s technology as an enabling layer across multiple T cell therapy programs—a business model gaining traction as cell therapy companies seek proven, de-risked manufacturing solutions.

Building Clinical Manufacturing Processes from Proven Technology

Jordan Jarjour, Chief Scientific Officer at Moonlight Bio, highlighted the practical advantages: “We look forward to collaborating with MaxCyte and leveraging their proven, GMP-compliant electroporation technology along with their deep scientific and regulatory expertise to build our clinical manufacturing process.”

This partnership reflects a broader industry trend where emerging biotech firms prioritize validated, regulatory-proven technologies over in-house platform development, accelerating time-to-clinic and reducing capital expenditure on manufacturing infrastructure.

Market Context and Forward Outlook

MaxCyte’s platform operates in a competitive space where cell-engineering efficiency directly correlates with manufacturing economics and therapeutic efficacy. The company has positioned Flow Electroporation® as a versatile enabling technology—applicable across diverse cell types and genetic payloads—making partnerships like Moonlight Bio strategically valuable for demonstrating platform versatility and generating recurring licensing revenue.

For Moonlight Bio, this collaboration signals confidence in its gene-edited T cell approach while outsourcing manufacturing complexity to an established provider. The preclinical-stage firm can now concentrate resources on clinical development and therapeutic optimization, a more capital-efficient approach for early-stage biotech.