Q Chip Ltd, a leading developer of microencapsulation solutions, has announced the successful completion of an investment funding round in excess of £2 million. A number of existing major shareholders participated in the round alongside such as new international investors.

News of the investment follows 2 significant product launches this year. MicroPlant™ is a microfluidics-based device which enables pharmaceutical and life science reagents to be packaged in precise, uniform polymer beads resulting in ultra-low wastage, uniform dosing & morphology and low process costs. The new ReaX™ Mastermix Lab-in-a-Bead range encapsulates all the reagents required to perform PCR in a single dose within the bead. This allows even untrained operators to set up PCR reactions in any thermal cycler system, whilst giving highly reproducible results.

"ReaX de-skills PCR processing through packaging of reagents in a single dose bead. We have calculated it can reduce the time involved by up to ninety percent" commented Dr Jo Daniels, Q Chip’s Chief Scientific Officer, "We believe our products will hasten field-based testing of bio-threats and food chain contaminants as well as point of care diagnostics for human health care. It’s this sort of market potential that generated so much interest amongst existing and new investors."