Instruments for customers in biopharma and academia

Axion at a glance

Axion Biosystems is a global life science tools business with headquarters in the US, developing, producing, and marketing BEA (Bioelectronic Assay) and live-cell imaging instruments for customers in biopharma and academia. Axion’s products enable scientists to understand cell function in real-time, enabling research and the development of new therapies across various pharmaceutical segments (e.g., cell and gene therapies).

Sector

Life Sciences tools

Location

United States

Employees

198

Investment themes

Changing Demographics

Key developments in 2022

Axion acquired M-Solv in January 2022, bringing production of consumables plates in-house with positive effects on gross margins. Axion also acquired CytoSMART in March 2022, allowing Axion to expand into the next-gen live-cell imaging market. Axion also developed two products, TrayZ and Omni 12 Pro, during 2022, which are being launched in Q1 2023, enabling new growth levers.

The challenges we face

Healthcare systems face great challenges in terms of the quality of patient outcomes produced in the system, and waste related to ineffective treatment regimes. Healthcare systems need better tools to target disease in more effective ways and create better outcomes. The research community that is driving the development of such tools has a great need to improve its understanding of biology and understanding cell function is central to some of the most important questions related to this work. Tools for analyzing cell function is important for many pharmaceutical segments, including the development of cell and gene therapies. BEA technology provides academic and biopharma organizations the ability to deepen their understanding of cell function, enabling faster, more accurate and more cost-efficient drug discovery and development, as well as improved quality control in drug production processes.

0in 6

deaths are due to Cancer globally, making it one of the leading causes of death worldwide.

~$0bn

average cost of getting a new drug onto the market.

How does Axion help?

Reality today

Healthcare systems need better tools to understand cell function in order to target diseases and drive patient outcomes.

Axion Approach

Axion enables multi-dimensional, inter­operable live-cell analysis to improve drug discovery and development, drive breakthroughs in cell and gene therapies, and ultimately enable superior health outcomes.

Aspirational future

Faster, more accurate and more cost-efficient drug discovery and development for precision medicine.

Who is impacted?

Researchers and biopharma are impacted directly through more effective tools to understand cell function. Patients are impacted indirectly through breakthroughs in treatment developments.

What are the impact considerations?

Additionality

Without Axion, academia and biopharma would have less insight into cell function, slowing down the time and reducing the quality of critical drug development.

Risks

Axion’s impact depends in part on how its customers in academia and biopharma choose to use its tools. Axion can engage customers to help ensure that the research and innovation it enables translates into patient outcomes downstream.


SDG alignments

SDG 3
SDG 9

KPI reporting

Number of publications

2022:
+0%
178
2021:
158
2020:
92

Healthcare funding affected (EURm)

2022:
+0%
21
2021:
12
2020:
12

Number of experiments run

2022:
+0%
790k
2021:
652k
2020:
456k