Sensirion Participates in Series A Financing Round of MaxWell Biosystems

Sensirion is part of a CHF 4 million Series A financing round of MaxWell Biosystems AG, a spin-off of ETH Zurich founded in 2016, to further industrialize and scale-up the production of their consumables, so-called multiwell high-density microelectrode array (HD-MEA) plates.

Such scale-up will enable the customers of MaxWell Biosystems in the pharmaceutical industry to run functional drug screenings at a higher throughput and ultimately contribute to accelerating the development of drugs targeting the brain.

This Series A was closed together with Sensirion Holding AG and other existing shareholders and business angels. With this financing round, MaxWell Biosystems is welcoming Dr. Matthias Streiff, sensor innovation at Sensirion, as a new board member.

MaxWell Biosystems AG develops and commercializes cell imaging systems that empower scientists in pharma and academia to reveal the function of neuronal networks in a dish. With these systems, users can accelerate the development of drugs targeting the brain and advance the understanding of the brain’s function.

At the core of MaxWell Biosystems’ technology is a custom-designed microsensor, a high-density microelectrode array (HD-MEAs), with thousands of tiny electrodes simultaneously sensing the small electrical signals of neuronal cells. This sensor is designed by MaxWell Biosystems and ETH Zürich and is fabricated using CMOS technology.

Sensirion Holding AG is a leading manufacturer of digital microsensors and systems. Sensirion’s product range includes gas and liquid flow sensors, as well as environmental sensors. Based on Sensirion’s extensive experience in the industrialization of CMOS-based microsensors, Sensirion’s products are applied in the medical, automotive, consumer, and industrial end markets, including analytical instruments.

Sensirion and MaxWell Biosystems have a long common history, dating back to their origin in the research groups of Prof. Henry Baltes and Prof. Andreas Hierlemann at the Physical Electronics Laboratory and, later, the Bio Engineering Laboratory of ETH Zurich.

Soon after Sensirion spun off from the Physical Electronics Laboratory to commercialize gas flow and humidity microsensors, the lab’s focus shifted to chemical and biosensors.

“I’m very excited to be able to support MaxWell Biosystems in their journey to enable high-throughput functional drug screening,” Streiff said.