ETH spin-off NexMR sells to Germany's Magritek to bring drug-discovery tech to the benchtop
What's the deal? Germany's MagritekDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a maker of cryogen-free benchtop nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers, has acquired Schlieren-based NexMRDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, an ETH Zurich spin-off. Terms were not disclosed.
What each side brings: Founded in 2022, NexMR develops technology that speeds up drug discovery on NMR instruments, a standard tool for identifying and characterising molecules. Its method, photo-CIDNP, is a light-based hyperpolarisation technique that amplifies the NMR signal. The company holds an exclusive worldwide licence from ETH Zurich for the core technology.
NexMR says the approach boosts signal strength by orders of magnitude without the cost and complexity of conventional hyperpolarisation hardware. Its CRIO-X platform runs light-coupled NMR screening on both benchtop and high-field spectrometers. That, it says, makes measurements like low-concentration samples and fast reaction monitoring possible on benchtop machines for the first time.
What's the endgame? Under the deal, NexMR's technology will be built into Spinsolve, Magritek's benchtop NMR platform. The goal is to bring NMR biophysics — long confined to large, expensive instruments — within reach of compact benchtop machines.
Why now? "We knew our technology needed the right home, and for us that was clearly Magritek," said Félix Torres, chief executive officer of NexMR. He cited Magritek's "technological superiority and customer reach" and its role in building the benchtop category "from the ground up."
Federico Casanova, chief executive officer of Magritek, said integrating photohyperpolarisation into Spinsolve makes NMR biophysics accessible from the benchtop, a capability he said the field had long wanted.
What's next? Development of the first hyperpolarisation-enabled systems is under way, with availability expected within 12 months.
The signal: The deal marries a four-year-old research spin-off's signal-enhancement science with an established hardware platform and distribution — a common exit route for deep-tech startups that build novel methods but lack the reach to commercialise them alone.
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Image credit: Generated with Gemini
