First successful year for Kimialys
Functionalisation of sensors, innovating to progress
Valorising a technology resulting from more than ten years of work at the Laboratoire de Biologie et Pharmacologie Appliquée (ENS Paris-Saclay/CNRS), followed by maturation at SATT Paris-Saclay, Kimialys is now providing the diagnostic industry with an innovative and patented solution: the functionalization (chemical treatment) of sensors, a real technological bottleneck that hampers the performance of current tests in terms of sensitivity, specificity and cost.
Validated today on gold, a material widely used in the field of diagnostics, Kimialys' K-One surface chemistry makes it possible to improve the sensitivity of measurements by a factor of 3 to 10, whatever the biological medium analysed (cell or bacterial extract, serum, etc.), while saving up to 50% of reagent.
This unique combination of advantages has enabled the company to meet strong demand in its two priority areas of development: improving the detection limit and cost price of rapid diagnostic tests, or strip tests - a highly topical subject - and enabling the characterisation of biomolecules developed in pre-clinical research. These are two distinct fields, but Kimialys' innovation is the answer to a common challenge: to push back the current limits of sensors to enable detection and biomolecular analysis that were previously impossible to achieve.
Housed at ENS Paris-Saclay and supported by the Agoranov incubator and the WILCO accelerator, Kimialys recently blew out its first candle in the presence of the many people who have contributed to this exciting development.
The first year in a few figures
- A team of 7 employees, including 5 doctors who are experts in physical chemistry applied to the detection of biological molecules;
- Several clients, developers of rapid diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical laboratories, who trust Kimialys to push the limits of their tests;
- Scientific excellence developed and maintained through a dozen partnerships (medical biology research centres, biosensor manufacturers);
- Three innovative biodetection tool projects (diagnosis, quality control) currently being co-developed
- 1.3m of public aid secured over the next 3 years - support from public financiers (Bpifrance, Secrétariat général pour l'investissement) which illustrates the unique character of K-One, a key French innovation that fits into the strategy of the Health sector.
The next step for Kimialys is to secure a first round of funding to scale up its technology to meet the demands of its current and future customers.