University spinout secures new investment
University of Birmingham spinout ChromaTwist Ltd has secured a £487k of investment to develop new types of dyes, that are used by laboratory scientists in the pharmaceutical industry and university research departments.
The dyes are used for a technique called 'flow cytometry ', which is widely used in medical research to stain cells or tissues.
The novel dyes were discovered by the research groups led by professor Jon Preece from the School of Chemistry and professor Alex Robinson from the School of Chemical Engineering.
The group, which has world-leading expertise, quickly realised they had found materials with a unique chemistry that allows tuneable fluorescence, meaning that small adjustments in the molecular structure alter the colour of the light they emit. The technology is protected by a suite of patents owned by ChromaTwist.
One of the central challenges in flow cytometry is the ability to detect multiple targets from the same sample (known as 'multiplexing '). The ChromaTwist dyes enable simultaneous tests to be carried out on a single sample, which increases speed and efficiency in laboratory testing.
This second round of equity investment, which brought in funds from directors, existing Angel investors, angelgroups and the University of Birmingham will allow the company to continue product development with industry partners, and enable rapid development of products for market entry as soon as 2023.
The funding builds previous funding totalling £857k, which allowed ChromaTwist to make significant progress, developing a proof of concept product and initiating testing with major players in the highly specialised market for flow cytometry reagents.
Professor Jon Preece commented: “Following a year of rapid product development and customer engagement, we have now moved to our own dedicated laboratory and will be expanding our team of scientists, so we can expedite our dye development for flow cytometry.
“We expect the resulting dyes to be fully compatible with existing flow cytometry processes and equipment, and are looking forward to the next 12 months working with industry partners. ”
ChromaTwist has already received commercial accolades and was nominated as 'one to watch ' in The Spinoff Prize 2020, which was organised by Nature Research, part of Springer Nature, and German leading science and technology company Merck KGaA, as well as being Royal Society of Chemistry Emerging Technologies finalists in 2019.
ChromaTwist is also evaluating longer-term opportunities in other sectors, including security inks and electronics, and already has sold 18 of its dyes to Sigma-Aldrich, part of the Life Science business sector of Merck.