Three start-ups grab SLAS New Product Award
The British company Semarion Ltd and US start-ups n6 Tec Inc and Portal Biotechnologies Inc were honoured with the New Product Award at the SLAS Conference 2025 in San Diego. The award, presented by the Society for Automation & Drug Screening, recognises pioneering technologies with the potential to transform the industry.
The winner of the SLAS Europe Ignite Award 2024, Semarion Ltd, and the US companies N6 Tec Inc and Portal Biotechnologies Inc, share the prize for the Breakthrough Product 2025. The companies were selected to receive the SLAS New Product Award by a jury of experts from ten finalists at the international SLAS 2025 conference in San Diego.
“Receiving the SLAS 2025 New Product Award for our SemaCyte Microcarrier Platform is an important validation of our approach to revolutionise adherent cell assays,” Jeroen Verheyen, co-founder and CEO of University of Cambridge spin-out Semarion Ltd, told European Biotechnology. “SemaCytes push the boundaries of traditional workflows by converting adherent cells into barcoded reagents that can be frozen, multiplexed and seamlessly integrated into microplate-based assays, enabling assay miniaturisation, higher throughput and better data generation,” he said. “The recognition of SLAS and the enthusiasm of pharma and biotech companies at our booth demonstrate the transformative potential of our technology,” added Tarun Vemulkar, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Semarion. Verheyen stated: “Winning this award is an exciting step forward in our expansion into the US market and we look forward to seeing how SemaCytes will continue to reshape the future of cell-based assays.”
The UK company’s platform addresses fundamental bottlenecks in rapid data generation, offering an up to a 10-fold increase in throughput and a six-fold reduction in costs for drug discovery workflows. Last year, the company launched a successful early adopter programme for its SemaCyte microcarrier platform and established several partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and CROs, followed by commercial launches in the UK and EU.
“We are delighted to receive the New Product Award in recognition of our potential to support a new generation of cell engineering and drug discovery capabilities,” Crystal Tsui, Scientific Partner at Portal Biotechnologies Inc, told European Biotechnology. “We are especially grateful to our early partners, including Eppendorf and Promega, for supporting our rapid development and early adoption by our customers,” she added. The Boston-based start-up, which emerged from obscurity in 2023, has faced rapid adoption of its Galaxy platform. In December, Portal Bio announced that it had already secured 50 partners, including 7 of the top 10 pharma companies, as well as US$7m in seed funding led by IA Ventures with participation from Pear VC, which had already led US$5m in pre-seed funding. “We look forward to further expanding our footprint by bringing new opportunities to our biopharma partners and joining forces with additional innovative technology partners,” Tsui added.
Portal Bio is a company specialising in the development of next-generation cell engineering and analysis for research and clinical applications. The company takes a simplified approach to intracellular delivery, focusing on accelerating advances enabled by the new generation of RNA, gene editing and molecular design technologies. Portal’s first product line is based on a proprietary silicone-based mechanical transport system that can deliver any type of cargo to a variety of cell types. The process relies on a temporary disruption of the cell membrane as it is transported through microscopic holes in a thin, specially designed silicon surface. The ability of the technology to be used stand-alone or as an integrated part of third party systems offers the opportunity to impact the fields of biological research and cell therapies extensively.
“We thank the judges and the SLAS organising committee for awarding iconPCR the New Product Award at SLAS2025,” Yann Jouvenot, Head of Product at n6 Tec Inc, told European Biotechnology. “We hope this is seen as an illustration that no technology is too established to be improved upon. We wish iconPCR can continue to improve data quality and streamline NGS workflows for genomics users across the world.” n6 Tec Inc, the inventor of semiconductor-based iconPCR, a groundbreaking advance in the field of genomics, unveiled the world’s first real-time thermal cycler with 96 individually controlled wells at AGBT 2024 and presented it to a wider audience at SLAS 2025. The company’s breakthrough technology promises to revolutionise DNA amplification and sequencing workflows with unrivalled simplicity and flexibility, setting a new standard for genomic research and diagnostics.
Together with the New Product Award (NPA) , SLAS also presented the Ignite Award that went to Bologna-based InSimili Srl.
More on the NPA later and in the March issue of European Biotechnology (for a sample, please click here), in which interested companies can present their technology as part of a focus on laboratory automation. Interested? Please contact us at marketing@biocom.de.
European Biotechnology is the official media partner of SLAS in Europe.
Watch out! Deadline
The application deadline for the SLAS Europe (20–22 May 2025, Hamburg, Germany) Ignite and New Product Award is approaching. Under the Innovation AveNEW for Startups programme, automation specialists can get access to a global life sciences research community with the power to recommend or purchase new technology through the SLAS newsletter sent out to all SLAS members. Additionally, an AveNEW booth in Hamburg secures networking to more than 1,000 prospective customers. Selected companies will receive a complimentary exhibition kiosk, exclusive visibility opportunities while on site, waived conference registration fees, travel, hotel accommodations and more. Applications are due Monday, 24 February 2025.