Xcell Biosciences announced today that it has expanded its development and commercial efforts around new market opportunities in immunotherapy drug research and development. The ever-growing Immuno-Oncology landscape and demonstrated success of new immunotherapy treatments has led to a large demand for tools and systems to expand and control primary tumor and immune cells for both research and clinical applications. Mature and stem cell-derived primary cells are also needed for assessing off-target effects for immunotherapy development. Xcell will use its expertise in expanding and modulating phenotypes of primary tumor, stem cell, and immune populations to deliver a new set of applications tailored to the immunotherapy and cell therapy drug development and production markets.

In addition to this expanded market focus, Xcell Biosciences welcomed Janette Phi to the organization as the Chief Operations Officer.

“We are thrilled to have Janette join the Xcell Biosciences team. Janette brings an immense amount of experience in Commercial Development and business leadership to the team, coupled with a strong background in immunology and general cell biology,” said Brian S. Feth, Chief Executive Officer at Xcell Biosciences. “Her guidance has helped us to focus our priorities, refine our message and is enabling us to drive our technology into important new markets.”

Prior to joining Xcell, Ms. Phi was Chief Business Officer and Chief Commercial Officer at IntelliCyt Corporation (a Sartorius Company). She has over 25 years of experience in the life sciences, coupled with extensive clinical experience. In addition to her leadership roles at IntelliCyt, Janette previously held management positions at ForteBio, Guava Technologies, AmCell and Becton Dickinson Biosciences.

“I am very excited to join the Xcell team in globally launching this proprietary, transformative technology to the field of immunotherapy,” Ms. Phi stated. “The technology has demonstrated its potential impact in cell therapy development through control of the physiological microenvironment, enabling predictive patient responses in precision cancer medicine.”

About Xcell Biosciences, Inc.

Xcell Biosciences, Inc., is developing revolutionary products and workflows that empower scientists in important fields including cancer research, immunology, stem cell biology, and cell therapy development. With $12 Million Series A from investors including HBM Genomics, Viking Global, Passport, Lightspeed, and Illumina; Xcell’s first product, the Avatar™ cell control system, offers a powerful new tool allowing for complete control of key physiological conditions found in cellular microenvironments, enabling rapid optimization of precise conditions to achieve long-term cell maintenance, expansion, and phenotypes of interest. For more information, visit www.xcellbio.com.