October 21, 2008–Molecular instrumentation company Trinean NV (Gentbrugge, Belgium) announced the closure of a $4.6 million dollar round of financing. The round was co-led by new investor Vesalius Biocapital and existing investor Capital-E. Trinean is a spin-off of the University of Ghent (Intec) and the Belgium nanoelectronics research center IMEC.

The company develops and markets a nanoliter spectrophotometer with corresponding microfluidic consumables allowing full-spectrum ultraviolet/visible (UV/VIS) spectroscopic measurements in droplets of liquids between 0.5 and 2.5 µL in a microplate format in a very fast and automated way.

The initial target application is the determination of DNA/RNA concentrations in small sample volumes. This is of great importance to the biotech industry where today valuable DNA/RNA material has to be sacrificed in order to measure these concentrations, and where test procedures are time consuming. Next to DNA/RNA quantification, other applications will also be targeted such as protein concentration measurements, enzymology, and clinical diagnostics.

The investment round will allow Trinean to start production, bring its products to the market, and develop new applications.