Leadership Team

Douglas Doerfler
President and CEO

Douglas Doerfler has over 25 years experience in the discovery, development and international financing and commercialization of biotechnology products and companies. He joined MaxCyte as its founding President and CEO in June 1999.

Prior to joining MaxCyte, he held senior corporate development and operating responsibilities for PFRM, Inc., a privately owned biotechnology holding company. He was President, Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Immunicon Corporation, a cell-based therapy and diagnostics company. Mr. Doerfler also held various executive positions with Life Technologies that included leading global businesses, mergers and acquisitions and public offerings.

Mr. Doerfler plays an active role as an advocate for the life sciences industry and serves on the Biotechnology Industry Organization's Board of Directors Executive Committee, the Emerging Company Section Board of Governors and Co-Chairs BIO’s Capital Formation Committee. He is a member of the Maryland High Technology Council’s Executive Committee and is Vice Chair for MDBio.

Doug received his B.S. in Finance from the University of Baltimore School of Business and a certificate in Industrial Relations.




Karen A. Donato, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing

Karen A. Donato, Ph.D., joined MaxCyte in 2008 as Vice President of Sales & Marketing. She brings almost fifteen years of experience in sales and marketing of products and services in life sciences, coupled with product and process development experience in biomedical materials and polymers. Prior to joining MaxCyte, Dr. Donato headed up business development for Summit Drug Development Services, a regulatory consulting firm. Earlier, Dr. Donato led an international sales and marketing team at Celsis In Vitro Technologies, focused on drug discovery tools for ADME-Tox applications. From 1995-2006, Dr. Donato held positions of increasing levels of responsibility in sales and marketing at TherImmune Research Corporation, which was acquired by Gene Logic during her tenure. At TherImmune and Gene Logic Labs, Dr. Donato was instrumental in the establishment of strategic business relationships with major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Dr. Donato has been involved in R&D and manufacturing in engineering related positions at Hoechst Celanese, Ethicon (a Johnson & Johnson Company), and DuPont.

Dr. Donato earned a B.S.E. from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Ohio University, all in Chemical Engineering. Dr. Donato also holds three issued patents in drug delivery.



Ronald Holtz
Chief Financial Officer

Ronald Holtz serves as MaxCyte's Chief Financial Officer. During his career, Mr. Holtz has been CFO of both public and private companies and has raised more than $100m in debt and equity capital. Prior to joining MaxCyte, Mr. Holtz was Chief Financial Officer of B2eMarkets, Inc. a privately held software solutions company targeting Global 1000 companies. Mr. Holtz also served as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of RWD Technologies, Inc., a leading information technology and performance improvement consulting firm. As CFO, Holtz led RWD's highly successful initial public offering and was responsible for finance, acquisitions, business management and analyst/investor relations. Previously, Mr. Holtz was a manager in Ernst & Young LLP's Financial Advisory Services Group. Mr. Holtz is also a founding member of the Robert H. Smith School of Business Finance Advisory Board at the University of Maryland. He earned a Master's of Business Administration in finance from the University of Maryland, a bachelor's of science degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin and is a CPA.


Madhusudan Peshwa, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President, Cellular Therapies

Madhusudan Peshwa, Ph.D., currently serves as Vice President, Research and Development at MaxCyte, Inc. Most recently, he was Executive Vice President for Research and Development at NewNeural LLC, a start-up stem cell therapy company. Earlier he served as Vice President of Manufacturing and as Vice President of Process Sciences at Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN), where we was responsible for development, characterization and manufacture of an autologous dendritic cell vaccine product from concept to late Phase III pivotal studies. His expertise is in the areas of design, characterization, scale-up and implementation of processes, and cGMP systems in the development of engineered cell and tissue products and for biopharmaceuticals' production.

Dr. Peshwa obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. He is a co-author on over 35 scientific publications and is a co-inventor on five, issued or under review, patent applications.