Evolva is a public company outside of Basel and they work on generating new biosynthetic pathways in yeast. According to the wikipedia page, they originated from a company called Phytera from the United States, eventually ending up in Switzerland and renamed as Evolva.
The technology of Evolva is based on biosynthetic pathways in yeast. They use artificial chromosomes to introduce new genes and pathways from other organisms into yeast in an effort to generate either novel pathways or to recapitulate biosynthetic pathways.
Evolva has (apparently) recently changed strategies to developing ingredients from a more pharma-based strategy. The have two compounds now in a legacy section on their webpage that have entered clinical trials. Evolva states that they are looking partners to continue to develop these products but they are also still presenting results at conferences in 2013. As for ingredients, they list several on their product page including vanilla and saffron. They also list Resveratrol, I wonder how that goes after the fraud reported last year. Evolva is also a partner in CHEM21, a European initiative for green chemistry funded by IMI.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Spinomix
Spinomix, a company spun out of EPFL in 2004 is developing new diagnostics using magnetic beads and microfluidics. Their webpage is rather out of date with most recent news from 2009. However, this month startupticker announces that Spinomix has just gotten series A investment from another Swiss pharma company, Debiopharm.
The Spinomix technology is based on magnetic beads which are commonly used in labs for separating and purifying interacting compounds in bioassays. Magnetic beads work great, purify your sample out of the tube by ensuring it binds to the magnetic beads through some kind of interaction, apply the magnet and remove the rest of the liquid sample. However, in a microfluidic device, clumping of the magnetic beads is a problem when you need the liquid sample to continue to flow and you need to expose as much surface area of the bead as possible to the sample. This is where Spinomix's technology comes into play - they have some kind of dynamic magnetic field which keeps the magnetic beads constrained but unclumped.
Once again, as with many microfluidic devices, Spinomix is planning on developing a point-of-care device. And the markets that Spinomix plans to target is similar to many other POC devices, personalized medicine etc. Currently they are seeking partners for the development of assays. No information given about the cost per test and if they have working prototype, one that looks as pretty as the one in the picture.
The Spinomix technology is based on magnetic beads which are commonly used in labs for separating and purifying interacting compounds in bioassays. Magnetic beads work great, purify your sample out of the tube by ensuring it binds to the magnetic beads through some kind of interaction, apply the magnet and remove the rest of the liquid sample. However, in a microfluidic device, clumping of the magnetic beads is a problem when you need the liquid sample to continue to flow and you need to expose as much surface area of the bead as possible to the sample. This is where Spinomix's technology comes into play - they have some kind of dynamic magnetic field which keeps the magnetic beads constrained but unclumped.
Once again, as with many microfluidic devices, Spinomix is planning on developing a point-of-care device. And the markets that Spinomix plans to target is similar to many other POC devices, personalized medicine etc. Currently they are seeking partners for the development of assays. No information given about the cost per test and if they have working prototype, one that looks as pretty as the one in the picture.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Quartz Bio
After a holiday break, I'm back with another company.
Along with Prexton Therapeutics, another spin-off from the decline and fall of Merck Geneva
is Quartz Bio. This seems to be part of the big search for biomarkers in the field of stratified medicine. Stratified medicine (from my search of buzzwords) is one step above personalized medicine where you look at groups not individuals.
Quartz Bio is made from ex-Merck Geneva employees and seems to be made from those with experience in clinical bioinformatics. Their press release states that Merck Serono intends to use their services so that sounds like at least one potential client lined up.
They are going to be located near Geneva in Fongit, a tech incubator with connections to (among many other things) CTI.
Along with Prexton Therapeutics, another spin-off from the decline and fall of Merck Geneva
is Quartz Bio. This seems to be part of the big search for biomarkers in the field of stratified medicine. Stratified medicine (from my search of buzzwords) is one step above personalized medicine where you look at groups not individuals.
Quartz Bio is made from ex-Merck Geneva employees and seems to be made from those with experience in clinical bioinformatics. Their press release states that Merck Serono intends to use their services so that sounds like at least one potential client lined up.
They are going to be located near Geneva in Fongit, a tech incubator with connections to (among many other things) CTI.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)