MaxCyte taps Cenk Sumen as its chief scientific officer

Cell engineering company MaxCyte announced the appointment of Cenk Sumen as its chief scientific officer on Thursday.

The AIM-traded firm said Dr Sumen had a “proven track record” of scientific, technological and business development expertise, and would bring experience in technology, application and platform assessments, the development of commercial partnerships and leading interdepartmental collaboration to accelerate scientific and technical direction.

“We are thrilled to have Cenk join the MaxCyte team, as his career has demonstrated a wealth of experience in science, technology, business development and corporate strategy," said founder, president and chief executive officer Doug Doerfler.

“He is a welcome and important addition to our leadership team and will be invaluable in helping to support our partners in the cell therapy space with MaxCyte's technology.

“I and the management team look forward to working with Dr Sumen to continually identify growth opportunities to enable the cell therapy sector and execute on our strategic vision to expand our scientific and product offerings.”

The company said Dr Sumen was arriving from Stemson Therapeutics, where he was chief technology officer and led all aspects of technology, scale-up, process development and automation.

Before that, he spent more than a decade focused on scientific innovation and business development strategy for companies including Thermo Fisher Scientific and Hitachi Chemical Advanced Therapeutics Solutions.

Dr Sumen holds a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from Stanford University, post-doctoral training at Harvard, and a fellowship at the Cancer Research Institute, working at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center under Nobel laureate Dr Jim Allison.

Additionally, it said Dr Sumen is an adjunct professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

“I am driven by scientific innovation and working with visionary companies that truly make a beneficial impact on the health of humanity,” said Cenk Sumen.

“I am eager to ensure MaxCyte's platforms are positioned as the premier solution for our customer's cell engineering requirements while, at the same time, synergistically driving scientific and technical direction with collective teams within the organisation to help expand MaxCyte's position in cell engineering and the cell therapy and bioprocessing markets.”

At 1504 GMT, shares in MaxCyte were down 0.7% at 427p.