Plas­mi­on joins Shi­madzu Cor­po­ra­ti­on

SICRIT tech­no­lo­gy en­ters next chap­ter

Shi­madzu Cor­po­ra­ti­on has ac­qui­red a 75% sta­ke of the out­stan­ding shares of Ger­man start­up Plas­mi­on GmbH (head­quar­te­red in Augs­burg, Ba­va­ria) on March 23, ma­king the com­pa­ny a sub­si­dia­ry. This ac­qui­si­ti­on aims to ob­tain Plasmion’s mass spec­tro­me­ter (MS) ion source tech­no­lo­gy SICRIT（Soft Io­niza­ti­on by Che­mi­cal Re­ac­tion In Trans­fer)* and re­la­ted tech­no­lo­gies to streng­then Shimadzu’s MS busi­ness.

SICRIT is a ground­brea­king tech­no­lo­gy that over­co­mes the li­mi­ta­ti­ons of the wi­de­ly used APCI (at­mo­sphe­ric pres­su­re che­mi­cal io­niza­ti­on) me­thod in li­quid chromatography–mass spec­tro­me­try (LC–MS) and si­mi­lar ap­pli­ca­ti­ons. Its chief fea­ture is the abili­ty to di­rect­ly io­ni­ze ana­lytes with high sen­si­ti­vi­ty wi­t­hout com­plex sam­ple pretre­at­ment, en­ab­ling high-sen­si­ti­vi­ty real-time ana­ly­sis that was pre­vious­ly dif­fi­cult. It is al­re­a­dy be­ing used in ap­pli­ca­ti­ons such as the search for di­se­a­se mar­kers in exha­led breath in the he­alth­ca­re field, mo­ni­to­ring trace ha­zar­dous sub­s­tances in the en­vi­ron­ment, and non-de­s­truc­ti­ve ana­ly­sis of aro­ma com­pon­ents in food and be­ver­a­ges.

Shi­madzu and Plas­mi­on have been col­la­bo­ra­ting sin­ce 2019 th­rough ex­ch­an­ges of tech­ni­cal in­for­ma­ti­on, len­ding of Shi­madzu pro­ducts, and de­ve­lo­p­ment of SICRIT ap­pli­ca­ti­ons. Plasmion’s foun­ders, CEO Dr. Tho­mas Wolf and CTO Dr. Jan-Chris­toph Wolf, will con­ti­nue to hold 25% of the company’s shares and re­main in­vol­ved in ma­nage­ment. Shi­madzu will de­ve­lop next-ge­ne­ra­ti­on mass spec­tro­me­ters by in­te­gra­ting the SICRIT tech­no­lo­gy with its MS-re­la­ted tech­no­lo­gies.

* SICRIT is a re­gis­tered trade­mark of Plas­mi­on.

Dr. Tho­mas Wolf, CEO of Plas­mi­on:
„We are tru­ly ex­ci­ted to join forces with Shi­madzu – a glo­bal lea­der in ana­ly­ti­cal in­stru­men­ta­ti­on who­se com­pa­ny vi­si­on ali­gns seam­less­ly with our own. What be­gan as a col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve re­la­ti­onship in 2019 has grown into so­me­thing far more pro­found: a shared com­mit­ment to re­de­fi­ning what ion source tech­no­lo­gy can con­tri­bu­te to the fu­ture of mass spec­tro­me­try. By com­bi­ning Plasmion’s in­no­va­ti­on with Shimadzu’s glo­bal reach and sci­en­ti­fic ex­cel­lence, we see tre­men­dous op­por­tu­ni­ties to de­ve­lop in­stru­ments that make day-to-day work ea­sier while at the same time pushing the boun­da­ries of what has been pos­si­ble so far.”

Photograph of Plasmion's LC Mo­du­le
Shimadzu LC Coupling 300dpi Cmyk

Plas­mi­on’s SICRIT ion source con­nec­tion mo­du­le (left) and an ul­tra-high per­for­mance li­quid chro­ma­to­graph-mass spec­tro­me­ter with the ion source at­ta­ched (right)

Back to all ar­tic­les