Bergen, Norway, November 28th, 2023: Today, Lifecare AS (LIFE), a clinical stage medical sensor company developing the next generation Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM), can disclose that Lifecare has placed the purchase order for a SEM (abbreviation for Scanning Electron Microscope) from the German supplier Carl Zeiss AG.
Reference is made to Lifecare’s list of trigger events, as presented at the semi-annual report of August 20th, 2023, and later investor communication. The launch of an automated production line at Lifecare Laboratory by end of Q2 2024 is set as a major milestone.
Photo: Team leader at Lifecare, Boris Stamm, operating a Scanning Electron Microscope Zeiss XB350
In order to achieve this, the company now has placed the purchase order for the highly advanced and precise Zeiss XB350 electron microscope. The microscope is especially suitable for the purpose of Lifecare and the setup of the automated production line next year.
– This decision on the Zeiss XB350 is based on a comparison of diverse SEM suppliers. Based on pre-work that has been performed recently Lifecare is convinced that Zeiss offers the best SEM system solution in terms of reliable high-tech machinery, good support service, and availability of dedicated hardware and software solutions to enable Lifecare the automated batchwise production of Sencell sensors, says CSO Prof. Andreas Pfützner at Lifecare.
The purchase of the Zeiss microscope also coincides with communication from Lifecare on October 2nd when the company announced the purchase of software for automated production from Carl Zeiss IQS Deutschland GmbH.
The SEM is considered a key component to manufacture Lifecare’s unique sensor for Continuous Glucose Monitoring applying osmotic pressure as the sensing principle. Sophisticated 3D-printing processes carried out in a SEM enables Lifecare to obtain the precision necessary to apply pressure sensing elements of a size as small as 40 nanometers (one nanometer corresponding to a millionth of a millimeter).
– The Scanning Electron Microscope with customized software is essential for our transition towards the industrial phase. Next year, the microscope will be used to reach our goals of pilot production in Q1 and automated production in Q2. The next step in our preparations will be to order nanofluidic dispensing machines to fill our reactive chemistry composition – developed at our entity Lifecare Chemistry Ltd in Bristol (UK) – to the sensors, says CEO Joacim Holter at Lifecare.