MaxCyte Inc. has is moving to a bigger home in Montgomery County as it prepares for more growth.
The life sciences company has inked a 67,000-square-foot lease, taking more than half of a five-story building at 9713 Key West Ave. in Rockville for its new headquarters. MaxCyte (LSE: MXCT) markets a cell-engineering platform for pharmaceutical companies developing new drugs and cell therapies. Its 75 employees will move in phases from the current headquarters at 21 and 22 First Field Road in Gaithersburg starting in the first quarter of 2022.
Beckham Gumbin Ventures LLC owns the 120,000-square-foot Key West Road building through an affiliate. Joseph Sutton Jr. and Marc Balamaci of Edge represented MaxCyte in negotiations. MaxCyte negotiated a deal that lets it occupy the space in phases over three years to replace a tenant who left before its lease was up.
"While this was a long and very challenging process, we successfully relieved the former users in the building of their cost burden, the landlord increased its rental income and reduced vacancy to nearly zero, and MaxCyte secured a long term, below market lease to boost their growth trajectory," Sutton said in a statement.
MaxCyte's platform allows for engineering of many different types of cells and it has granted licenses for 140 cell therapy programs, including 100 for clinical use. In 2017, the company split a $1.2 million award from Maryland Technology Development Corp. (TEDCO) with Rockville's Propagenix Inc., Germantown's Seraxis Inc. and 3Dnamics Inc.
Sutton said MaxCyte plans to "substantially increase its workforce" in the new space. Its website lists openings for a variety of jobs including cell therapy and bio-production scientists, mechanical engineers, research associates and scientific writers.
And the company is poised to grow. The company, which went public in 2016 on the London Stock Exchange, just filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue a public offering and dual list on the Nasdaq. Casdin Capital of New York, Sofinnova Partners of Paris and several other investment groups are already major shareholders in MaxCyte.
“We have seen sustained strong growth in our core life sciences business as demand for our next generation gene and cell therapy enabling products continues to expand internationally, despite the issues that Covid-19 has placed around the globe," CEO Doug Doerfler said in December 2020. "MaxCyte continues to be uniquely positioned to capitalize on the rapidly growing cell therapy market.”
