IRUBIS Since the EIC Accelerator: Infrared Sensor Goes Downstream

Biologic drugs such as antibodies and vaccines are made by living cells in steel or plastic bioreactors and then purified in a chain of filtration and chromatography steps. Much of what happens inside is still measured by drawing samples and analysing them offline. IRUBIS, a 2017 spin-off of the Technical University of Munich, builds an inline sensor that reads the chemistry of the process liquid with mid-infrared light through a silicon crystal in a disposable flow cell, so nothing has to be sterilised or cleaned between batches.

In the EIC Accelerator pilot's January 2020 cut-off, the European Commission selected IRUBIS for blended finance, a grant plus EIC equity, for a project called SUPAIR Spectroscopy, according to the Commission's list of selected companies, which names IRUBIS GMBH as the project's only company. The grant was €1,316,229.25 towards a total cost of €1,880,327.50, from 1 May 2020 to 30 April 2022, according to CORDIS. Six years on, the device is on sale as Monipa, the EIC Fund is a shareholder, and the company has just closed a crowdfunding round to pay for a push into the United States.

Where IRUBIS Stands Now

IRUBIS is active. On 24 September 2026 it announced that its equity crowdfunding campaign on Companisto, run from May to September 2026, had closed, and that the money would pay for "commercial expansion into the USA", scaled-up production and further development of Monipa, according to the company's press release. The Companisto campaign page shows €1,054,950 invested against a goal of €1,100,000, at a company valuation of €14,000,000. The two sources disagree on the number of backers: the press release says 383 investors, the campaign page shows 442. Which figure counts what is not explained.

The company changed leadership a year earlier. Co-founder Anja Müller, chief executive since at least 2024, stepped back "for private reasons", and the advisory board appointed Matthias Eggers, formerly in charge of commercial strategy at the bioreactor maker m2p-labs, which Beckman Coulter Life Sciences acquired, according to IRUBIS's announcement of 14 August 2025. The commercial register recorded Eggers as managing director on 18 September 2025, according to North Data. The company's team page lists Eggers with the two other co-founders, Lorenz Sykora-Mirle as chief technology officer and Alexander Geißler as chief commercial officer, and 17 team members in total. The Monipa interface documentation lists a software release dated 7 May 2026 and firmware dated 8 December 2025, according to the company's version page.

The Technology: Infrared Through a Disposable Window

Molecules absorb mid-infrared light at characteristic wavelengths, so a spectrum of a process liquid shows how much protein, sugar or buffer component it contains. IRUBIS measures by attenuated total reflection (ATR): the light runs inside a crystal and probes only a thin layer of liquid touching its surface. Its own contribution is a silicon ATR crystal cheap enough to throw away, built into a single-use flow cell, which the company says removes the cleaning and sterilisation that reusable probes need. The CORDIS objective set this against Raman-based systems, which it described as "highly expensive" with probes "not robust enough", requiring repeated sterilisation.

Monipa today is a spectrometer covering 800 to 3,000 cm⁻¹ with a dismountable single-use flow cell and software that connects through OPC UA and a REST interface, according to the product page. Instead of the large calibration models that spectroscopic instruments usually require, the company offers a "relative calibration method that requires only the known starting value of the parameter". The technology page gives a measuring range of 0.5 to 250 mg/mL for proteins. IRUBIS also sells its silicon ATR crystals on their own for standard laboratory FTIR instruments, according to its crystal page.

Independent work backs the downstream use. A study by Alvotech in Reykjavík with IRUBIS staff, published in Engineering in Life Sciences in December 2022, monitored antibody concentration during ultrafiltration and diafiltration from 17 mg/ml to over 200 mg/ml with a coefficient of determination of 0.995. A 2026 study in Applied Spectroscopy Practica by Novartis researchers and IRUBIS staff compared the three main inline methods for the same step and reported prediction errors for protein concentration of 5.0% for mid-infrared and 3.2% for both Raman and variable pathlength ultraviolet spectroscopy, according to the published abstract. In that comparison, the IRUBIS method was usable but not the most accurate.

The same partners page carries statements from Richter BioLogics, Siemens, a former Alvotech manager, CPI and the software firm S-PACT. None of them names a purchase order, an installed base or a manufacturing line under GMP, and IRUBIS has published no revenue or unit numbers.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What the Record Shows

SUPAIR Spectroscopy followed an EIC SME Instrument Phase 1 feasibility study of the same name, which received €50,000 from May to September 2019, according to CORDIS. The Phase 2 objective was to "conclude all technical developments and lay the ground for a successful market commercialisation". When the project began, IRUBIS said the money would let its "ten-person team" grow and run "extensive test runs and cooperations with customers from the biopharma industry", according to its press release of 26 May 2020 (translated).

The final report says that in the first nine months the team built hardware and software, including "an algorithm that can monitor glucose and lactate, without extensive calibration model building and a control feature to keep the glucose concentration at a constant level", and that in the second period Monipa "was validated, and the manufacturing of the analytical device was adapted based on the feedback from biopharma users", according to the CORDIS report summary. CORDIS lists no deliverables or publications, only three trademarks, including Monipa. The company's own history page dates market entry with Monipa to 2021, for upstream monitoring and automated glucose control, and a redesigned Monipa 1 to 2023. The project ended on its scheduled date.

1. Finish the single-use MIR sensor systemDeliveredMonipa on sale; CORDIS report and product page.
2. Glucose monitoring and control without heavy calibrationDeliveredReported in the CORDIS summary; no independent upstream study found.
3. Validation with biopharma companiesDeliveredAlvotech study 2022, Engineering in Life Sciences.
4. Groundwork for commercialisationDelivered€2.8M seed round six months after the project ended; HTGF.
5. Bioreactor monitoring as the lead marketShiftedProduct now marketed for downstream steps.

The amount of the grant appears three ways in the record. CORDIS gives an EU contribution of €1,316,229.25. IRUBIS's 2020 press release spoke of €1.3 million, but its March 2022 release described "the 1.8m € grant awarded in 2020", a figure close to the project's total cost of €1,880,327.50, not to the EU share.

The Money Since the Award

The equity half of the blended award arrived in March 2022: a convertible loan of €500,000 from the EIC Fund "as part of the EIC Accelerator Pilot program", according to the same company release. IRUBIS GmbH appears in the EIC Fund's official list of invested companies, under the project title of SUPAIR Spectroscopy. The EIC Fund also took part in the €2.8 million seed round of October 2022, led by High-Tech Gründerfonds, Verve Ventures and Ventura BioMed Investors, according to HTGF and Munich Startup. Whether the convertible loan was converted in that round is not public.

A pre-Series A round led by BioProcess360 Partners followed in August 2024, with HTGF, Verve Ventures, Ventura BioMed Investors, RoBet KG and business angels, according to HTGF and Munich Startup. Its size was not disclosed; the company's release was filed under the name "Convertible loan". Its stated aims were GMP readiness for Monipa and wider use in downstream steps.

The commercial register shows the share capital rising from €25,000 at registration to €42,633 in August 2024, with increases in August and September 2022 and August 2024, according to North Data, which also lists 15 active shareholders. IRUBIS has filed balance sheets for 2020 to 2024, the latest on 21 August 2025, but their figures could not be viewed for free, so its equity, losses and cash cannot be reported here. North Data also records a German federal SME innovation grant of €49,918 from May 2019 and patent publications for the ATR element and the flow cell, the latest on 18 February 2026. The company's legal notice confirms the register number and the Munich address.

Why Europe Should Care

The European Commission's Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe, adopted on 25 November 2020, warns that the EU "is also becoming increasingly dependent on non-EU countries for importing medicines and their active ingredients" and calls for "diversified and secure supply chains". Tools that make biologic manufacturing faster to develop and easier to control serve that aim, and regulators have encouraged them since the US Food and Drug Administration's 2004 framework for process analytical technology. IRUBIS's next stated step, however, is the United States.

The Verdict

IRUBIS and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.