Izon

Izon have a machine for measuring particle sizes. The instrument seems a lot like a Coulter counter with a few little twists. Specifically they measure not just the current blockage, but also the translocation speed, where a traditional Coulter counter is measuring current alone:

Another trick the Izon has is the ability to alter the pore size. Pores are formed in a flexible polyurethane membrane. The instrument can pull on the pore to increase its size:

Those pores are also much smaller than those typically used in Coulter counters, going down to 40nm.

The company appears to be mostly focused on characterizing Exosomes/EVs/Liposomes. Which is not an area that is deeply interesting to me, but the basic technology seems fun.

Financially Izon seems to have been plodding along for some time, and got a solid boost during COVID with a $10.5M investment. However revenue appears to be below reporting limits, and I’d guess it’s significantly less than $10M/yr.

Still it’s interesting it feels like a platform you should be able to do a lot more with, it’s just not clear what exactly.

Some folks have suggested using nanopores to characterize whole viroids. I’m not particularly bullish on those… but perhaps with labels or functionalization the Izon system could be pushed in this direction? It feels with a solid platform built they are in an interesting position to try these things out…

Izon has been around since ~2005, so I’m not expecting any transformative developments overnight. But they do firmly sit in the back of my mind along with the occasional idle thought that:

“there’s got to be something fun you could do with that platform!”