Faster access to new and more effective medicines

A long-term collaboration between AstraZeneca and Chalmers led to the founding of InSingulo in 2017. The core business is set up around the challenges of biophysics in drug discovery using single-molecule microscopy.

The method developed by InSingulo provides improved sensitivity and low reagent consumption which is extremely valuable for new and challenging drug targets. This is especially true for studying membrane proteins in their native environment, without compromising on data content and quality.

“Our mission is to provide the most sensitive and productive biosensing technology for drug development, diagnostics, and quality control. While many other methods take target proteins and modify them for the sake of the assay, at InSingulo, we keep proteins in their natural state. We believe that biosensing methods should be adopted to the target, not the other way round”, says InSingulo Founder and CSO, Tim Kaminski.

The challenge of membrane proteins

By introducing this state of the art technology, InSingulo enables faster access to new and more effective medicines.

Membrane proteins have an essential role in regulating physiological processes, making them a prime target for therapeutic drugs in many different diseases. However, the most common methods for studying proteins can often not be used with membrane proteins which are much more challenging to work with due to their transmembrane domains. This poses a challenge for all drug developers working with membrane proteins.

“What we have done is simply to provide a new and simple way to investigate membrane proteins as drug targets, unlocking new opportunities in drug discovery”, says Tim Kaminski.

Tremendous growth and the way forward

Insingulo supports companies in drug development by improving opportunities in testing.

“We sell the service of testing external partners’ material, but we are also developing the instrument itself so that our customers can test their material in-house, with a planned first delivery before the summer of 2023. Our business going forward will revolve around the instrument with its accessories. Today we also perform testing services but this is not core business, we sell the service primarily for research purposes in collaboration with academia”, InSingulo CEO, Karl-Johan Holm explains.

Just six months ago, InSingulo consisted of two people who established the business in 2017. Today there is a whole team of researchers, and staff responsible for sales and marketing. It is a very strong development, with ten employees plus ten consultants enabling InSingulo to reach their goals.

“We have many different competences gathered in the company and have recruited top talents from other countries. This means that we have great diversity in the company, with 7 different nationalities represented so far. We are looking for unique talent. What we can offer is developing work at the absolute forefront of research, in a creative environment at Bioventure Hub”, Karl-Johan Holm concludes.