 Gyros AB was spun off at the start of the millennium from Amersham Pharmacia Biotech. After a decade of research and development, the time was right to strike out independently to become a leading supplier of microlaboratories based on its established expertise in surface chemistry and microfluidic technology. |
 Gyros AB Founded: 2000 Publicly listed: No Number of Employees: 70 Key business area(s): Biotechnology. Miniaturization and integration of laboratory processes. Telephone: +46 18 566 300 Website Contact |
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Nano-Science Future
Backed by its own in-house knowledge (30% of the multi-national staff holds Ph.D. degrees), and with a large and expanding academic and industrial network, Gyros AB is very well positioned to make an impact in the fields of life-science research, biotechnology, and diagnostics, and—even more importantly—in the specific area of drug discovery and diagnostic applications within pharmaceutical research. One of the company’s numerous sophisticated patents covers the use of microfluidic technologies within compact disks—giving the concept of playing a CD an entirely new meaning. Drug Discovery & Proteomics Proteomics is one of the fastest growing areas in drug discovery today. High hopes are now held in the medical field that a deeper understanding of protein products from gene expression will revolutionize patient treatment tomorrow. Pharmaceutical companies are heavily involved in proteomic investigations, searching for potential drug targets among the thousands of proteins found in normal or diseased tissues. Gyros AB has patented a unique concept to reduce the cumbersome macro-world of the pharmaceutical laboratory down to a fast nano-world lab captured within a compact disk, a simple yet complex CD. Development of this revolutionary technology will see numerous commercial applications opening up in the years to come—but one of the major marketing targets today is proteomics within drug discovery, because such CDs are capable of quickly running hundreds of samples in parallel. And running them fast. The challenge of processing The ongoing search for medically important proteins involves the preparation of literally thousands of samples, repeated hundreds of times. Faced with the challenge of processing so many samples as efficiently and as cost-effectively as possible, while retaining or, preferably, boosting the quality of the information content, the pharmaceutical industry has been, and is, searching high and low for salient solutions. The CD technol-ogy nearing completion at Gyros AB , and through co-operation in a part-nership network, represents a formidable contender in this arena. The first product should hit the market during 2002 when Gyros releases a CD microlaboratory for sample preparation before analysis by MALDI-ToF mass spectrometry, one of the most commonly used techniques used for protein identification in proteomics. Great Expectations To accelerate the pace of new discoveries, the pharmaceutical market is constantly on the lookout for ways to increase efficiency in the drug discovery process: • improving sensitivity to better resolve what is happening and why • improving throughput by reducing assay times and increasing automation levels • simplifying assay formats to require less expertise, less manual work, and give better reliability • increasing accuracy and improving consistency in results, and • ensuring greater cost-effectiveness in the use of expensive samples and reagents. The seemingly insatiable needs of the pharmaceutical industry are challenging enough, but these demands represent only a few noticeable waves in a big ocean, a very big ocean, indeed. Perhaps the very vastness of the application market ought to bring to mind the old adage, “Sink or swim.” Or, more accurately, in this case, “swim or sink.” With ten years of development work behind it, the company is now faced with effectively and successfully meeting these nearly endless market expectations, or sink in the process. Per Sjöberg, the executive vice president of commercial operations at Gyros AB, explains : “because the utility potential of our technology plat-form is so vast, we are actively seeking partners in several application fields and offering custom-designed programs to those clients who really want to benefit from this new technology as soon as possible for their own application. To ensure success,” he continues, “we have decided to work initially only with a few application areas so that we stay focused on the delivery of our first product.” It seems obvious that supported by additional networking as well as increased financing, Gyros AB will be able to launch any number of CD microlaboratory products without any risk of running short of ideas. Finances and the Future Having received the largest biotech-related investment in Sweden to date, Gyros AB started the millennium on solid financial footing. Seed capital was provided by a consortium of 'blue-chip' Scandinavian investors. Additional “solvency” is provided, of course, by the fact that Gyros AB owns over 30 patents and patent applications. “Our goal is to be the leading supplier of microlaboratories,” says CEO Maris Hartmanis. With its expertise in both surface chemistry and micro-fluidic technology, and with its application-specific focus based on its unique and revolutionary CD technology, the company certainly seems well positioned to achieve this goal. Everett Ellestad |
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