SiriusXT secures a €3m investment
SiriusXT has secured a €3m investment in the latest round of Horizon 2020 SME funding from the EU.
The UCD spin-out company which was co-founded last year by Dr Kenneth Fahy, Dr Fergal O’Reilly and Dr Paul Sheridan following 10 years of research on the technology that underpins the soft x-ray tomography microscope.
The microscope, which is now being commercialised by SiriusXT, allows researchers to illuminate whole single cells or tissue samples and produce 3D images that cannot be produced in any other way. These images can show in detail the inner workings of drugs and disease and enable scientists to track how drugs and disease affect specific cells.
The firm said it planned to use the Horizon funding to take its technology from a current prototype to a first product, with a pilot system being trialled by an early adopter in the UK in 2017.
SiriusXT CEO Tony McEnroe said the company’s main target market is “the thousands of worldwide research laboratories who are focused on disease research and drug discovery.
SiriusXT currently employs eight people, mostly scientists and engineers, but chief executive Tony McEnroe says the company hopes to more than triple its current staff numbers over the coming years.