Depixus

Depixus, operating from Paris and Cambridge, UK, is a life-science tools company founded in 2012 by Gordon Hamilton and Chas Andre. It originated as a spin-out from the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris, based on intellectual property from Vincent Croquette, David Bensimon, and Jean-François Allemand. Gordon Hamilton, the CEO, has a background that combines medicine and business, with a medical degree from Imperial College School of Medicine, an MBA from INSEAD, and prior experience as a Medical Director at the biopharmaceutical firm ChemoCentryx.

The company is focused on commercializing its proprietary MAGNA™ platform, a laboratory instrument system designed for the high-throughput analysis of biomolecular interactions at the single-molecule level. The core technology, magnetic force spectroscopy, involves attaching a magnetic bead to individual molecules like DNA, RNA, or proteins. A magnetic field is then used to apply force to these beads, allowing researchers to observe the dynamics of interactions in real-time, such as a drug binding to an RNA molecule or proteins interacting with each other. This method provides detailed data on binding strength, kinetics, and molecular structure that is often lost in traditional bulk analysis techniques.

Depixus operates on a business model centered on selling its MAGNA One instrument, along with associated workflows and reagents, to research laboratories in the biopharmaceutical industry and academia. The technology serves researchers aiming to decode disease mechanisms and accelerate drug discovery, particularly for challenging targets like RNA and protein-protein interactions. The platform's ability to provide high-resolution data on individual molecular events helps scientists differentiate biological signals from analytical noise, which can reduce costly failures in preclinical and clinical drug development. The company has secured over €50 million in funding through a combination of equity financing and grants. A significant Series A round in December 2021 raised €30.6 million, co-led by Lansdowne Partners and Bpifrance, to advance the MAGNA system towards commercial launch.

Keywords: magnetic force spectroscopy, single-molecule analysis, biomolecular interactions, life science tools, dynamic genomics, MAGNA One, drug discovery, RNA-targeted drugs, protein-protein interactions, epigenetic sequencing, molecular diagnostics, biophysics, venture capital, Bpifrance, Lansdowne Partners, École Normale Supérieure, Gordon Hamilton, Paris biotech, Cambridge biotech, real-time molecular analysis