News
Aitua Ltd Portfolio Company Probe Scientific Launches its MicroEye® Device and Gains First Export Order
13 November 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 formally launched its revolutionary MicroEye® device and has already secured its first export order.
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.
Probe has signed a contract to supply MicroEye® to the Joanneum Institute in Graz, Austria, where it will be used to progress research into glucose in blood. The sale effectively marks Probe Scientific’s transition from focusing purely on research to developing a product pipeline for its own proprietary technology.
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 part of its 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.
Probe Scientific is exhibiting next week in Hall 16 at MEDICA, the world’s largest medical trade fair.
Amanda Bettison of Aitua said: “As a lead investor in Probe we are delighted by the progress made to date with the MicroEye®. We believe that Probe’s proprietary platform tool has significant potential and that there is a substantial global target market for MicroEye®.”
Neil Smith, CEO of Probe Scientific, said: “We are delighted to have secured our first export order so soon after the formal launch of the product following regulatory approval in Europe, which was achieved in June. Our priority now is to obtain regulatory approvals in the potentially enormous US and Japanese markets in the coming months.”