News
Aitua Ltd Portfolio Company Probe Scientific Gains EU approval for its MicroEyeŽ Device
Single-use blood sampling device eliminates needle puncture in blood sampling
1 June 2007
Aitua Ltd (“Aitua”), the life science IP commercialisation company, today announces that one of its portfolio companies, Probe Scientific (“Probe”), the medical device company, has been awarded regulatory approval to market its MicroEye® device in Europe. MicroEye® is a sterile single-use, minimally invasive blood sampling device which allows continuous blood sampling in collaboration with pre-existing access devices, thereby avoiding repeated needle puncture for the patient.
CE marking, an important milestone for Probe, allows the device to begin clinical evaluations with selected customers in the UK and Europe. Leading clinical researchers are keen to evaluate the MicroEye® and to demonstrate its value in solving blood collection problems associated with cutting edge medical research and clinical trials. MicroEye® is the first product of the series; future products will employ Probe’s proprietary platform tool to focus on automated sampling and sensing technologies for immediate analysis at a patient’s bedside in a wide range of clinical markets.
When Aitua was established in June 2006, Probe was one of the initial portfolio of early stage investments provided by Babraham BioScience Technologies. In February 2007 Aitua consolidated its equity position leading a £300,000 follow-on round with Probe’s existing group of angel investors.
Amanda Bettison of Aitua said: “As a lead investor in Probe we are delighted by the progress made to date with the MicroEye®. The awarding of the CE Mark is a promising development in Probe’s progress towards producing a device that can be sold into the high potential global market for automated blood sampling and analysis.”
Neil Smith, CEO of Probe Scientific, said: “The regulatory process
is a key step in the development of new medical devices. Our European approval
means we can start to market, evaluate, and further develop, our product
in Europe. We will also use the approval of MicroEye® to initiate the
regulatory work for the USA.”