LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Cell engineering specialist MaxCyte saw its shares slide on Thursday, after it updated its revenue guidance for the year on the back of its first quarter performance.

The AIM-traded company said total revenue for the three months ended 31 March was $8.6m, indicating a decrease of 26% compared to the same period in 2022.

Core business revenue amounted to $7.8m during the quarter, down 19% year-on-year.

MaxCyte adjusted its revenue expectations for 2023 as a result, saying it now expected total revenue growth of between 8% and 12% compared to 2022.

Core revenue was projected to grow between 5% and 10%, while strategic platform licence (SPL) programme-related revenue was expected to remain at around $6m for the year.

The firm said it had successfully entered into two SPL partnerships in 2023 this far, having signed a partnership with Walking Fish Therapeutics in May and another with Catamaran Bio in January.

It said those recent partnerships took the total number of SPL partners to 20.

Additionally, MaxCyte appointed Douglas Swirsky as its chief financial officer, saying he would bring more than two decades of experience in the healthcare sector, including previous roles as a public company executive in Nasdaq-listed organisations.

As of 31 March, MaxCyte's total cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments amounted to $224.7m.

"Given the evolving operating environment, we are pleased with our first quarter results and the progress we have made towards delivering on our long-term financial and strategic initiatives," said president and chief executive officer Doug Doerfler.

"2023 continues to develop into a challenging year for the industry, as companies prioritise their internal development assets within an evolving funding environment, and we are updating our guidance accordingly.

"We continue to make important progress in 2023, highlighted by expanding our partnership portfolio with two new partners announced including Walking Fish Therapeutics in May and Catamaran Bio in January."

Doerfler said the company's partnership pipeline was continuing to develop, with a number of potential partners operating across a variety of cell types, indications, and gene-editing modalities.

"We also look forward to a potentially first commercially approved product enabled by our platform, Vertex and CRISPR's exa-cel program, which recently announced completion of their rolling biologics licence applications (BLAs) to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for sickle cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia with request for priority review.

"MaxCyte's technology continues to play a key role enabling the development of lifesaving therapeutics across various disease types.

"We are excited to see our partners' progress in 2023 and beyond as the cell therapy industry moves forward."

At 1133 BST, shares in MaxCyte were down 15.79% at 320p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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