Attana
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Attana is a Swedish biotech tools company that has developed a biosensor that enables studies of molecular interactions in real-time without the need of labels.
The biosensor systems are based on the Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) technology which has been around since the 1960's. However, by combining patented continuous flow, micro-scale fluidics to the QCM technology, the company has enabled new application areas for the QCM technology. Traditionally, QCM instruments have been used within surface science rather than biotech applications.
Attana's technology is based on the experimental set-up developed by one of its founders, Dr. Teodor Aastrup, during his Ph.D. work at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden in the 1990's. Together with Henrik Anderson (Chemical Engineer), Jan Smith (Mechanical Engineer) and Samir Fostock (International Management), Dr. Aastrup founded Attana in 2002.
With more than 15 years of hands-on experience of the Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) technology, the founders of Attana sought to leverage on the growing demand for effective biosensors within pharmaceutical development. After having benchmarked their previous work against other existing sensor technologies, the founders understood that the inherent capacity of the QCM technology could lead to smaller, faster and more inexpensive sensors.
The biosensor systems sold by Attana enable real-time monitoring of biological molecular interactions, useful within many life science applications. Being a micro-scale balance, the QCM technology is not dependent on specific optical properties, facilitating interaction studies on a wide variety of surfaces unlike other sensor technologies such as Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR).
This market has historically been dominated by the Swedish company Biacore (Acquired by GE Healthcare in 2006), but in the past five years several new companies with various different technolgies have entered the market. These include companies such as: Akubio, Forté Bio, ICX Technologies, SRU Biosystems, etc.
