Abionic: Providing faster allergy diagnostics
18.12.2014
(Article published in the 2014 Venture Kick annual report issued in January 2015). The annual conference of European allergists lasts three days. In 2014, Abionic attended for the first time and presented its rapid allergy tests. “A total of 600 allergy specialists came to our booth, filling up two binders with addresses of prospective customers,” says Abionic CEO Nicolas Durand. This interest is no coincidence. Until now, allergy tests were performed by specialist labs and patients had to wait days for the results. The 2010 venture kick winner now makes it possible for the first time to perform tests right in the doctor’s practice.
 Abionic: An ambassadeur of Swiss nano-, bio- and medical- technology know-how.
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In October 2014, Abionic closed a second funding round of CHF 3.8 million to further develop its catalog of allergy-specific reagents and launch its first product on the market early 2015. The system developed by Abionic consists of a round disk the size of a CD that holds up to eight small, transparent capsules and a reading device into which the disk is inserted. The capsules contain nano-chambers, where specific proteins present in drops of blood from the patient are quantified within minutes. The reading unit is equipped with a touch screen that is used to operate the device and which shows the results. In addition, an iPad app allows the doctor to do other tasks, such as quickly print out a report. “In our domain, more than one test is needed to interest allergists: At least one hundred allergies are known today and many are still to be discovered. Hopefully, we are concentrating our work on the principal ones, a total of around 20”, explains Durand.
If Abionic starts commercialization in 2015 as planned, it will be the first company in the world to sell a quantitative system for rapid allergy tests. Accordingly, the spin-off from EPF Lausanne has had its sights on the international market from the very start. The product will not only be launched in Switzerland, but also in Germany and the UK. For more than a year now, Abionic has had the necessary mandatory conformity marking required (the CE mark) to sell the device in Europe. The approval process for the US is already underway as well and Abionic plans to enter this market in 2016. Nevertheless, the final clinical trial series are in progress in order to silence any critics before the actual launch.
For the second consecutive year, Abionic is the 3rd best Swiss startup in the TOP 100 ranking. Its co-founders, Nicolas Durand and Iwan Märki, benefited from the support of venture kick since the company’s early days: «venture kick helped us to gain a global vision of our activities and not loose ourselves into details. I would recommend the program to anyone who is interested to enter the Swiss startups ecosystem”, concludes Durand.
If Abionic starts commercialization in 2015 as planned, it will be the first company in the world to sell a quantitative system for rapid allergy tests. Accordingly, the spin-off from EPF Lausanne has had its sights on the international market from the very start. The product will not only be launched in Switzerland, but also in Germany and the UK. For more than a year now, Abionic has had the necessary mandatory conformity marking required (the CE mark) to sell the device in Europe. The approval process for the US is already underway as well and Abionic plans to enter this market in 2016. Nevertheless, the final clinical trial series are in progress in order to silence any critics before the actual launch.
For the second consecutive year, Abionic is the 3rd best Swiss startup in the TOP 100 ranking. Its co-founders, Nicolas Durand and Iwan Märki, benefited from the support of venture kick since the company’s early days: «venture kick helped us to gain a global vision of our activities and not loose ourselves into details. I would recommend the program to anyone who is interested to enter the Swiss startups ecosystem”, concludes Durand.