Refeyn staff join mass photometry inventor Prof. Philipp Kukura in cutting ribbon to Refeyn’s new US customer interaction center in Massachusetts’ Waltham Biotech Hub

Refeyn, the company behind pioneering mass photometry technologies, has officially opened its new 10,000 sq. ft. US Headquarters and Customer Interaction Center in Waltham’s Biotech Hub in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. Refeyn CEO Gerry Mackay – along with two members of the sales team and one of the company’s co-founders, Prof. Philipp Kukura – helped to cut the ribbon at the opening event. Philipp Kukura led the research team that invented mass photometry, a unique light-based bioanalytical tool for rapid, single-particle analysis. The ceremony was attended by senior representatives from neighboring biotech companies in the Boston area, as well as Refeyn customers and employees.

The grand opening is a significant milestone in the rapid growth of Refeyn since it was spun out of Oxford University just six years ago. Hundreds of its instruments are now used globally for applications in scientific discovery, R&D, and therapeutics production, with more applications being cited regularly. As Philipp Kukura commented at the opening event, “In the early days, mass photometry’s potential was obvious and the key question wasn’t ‘What can mass photometry do?’ but ‘What can mass photometry not do?’ It is amazing to witness the opening of Refeyn’s state-of-the-art US HQ today, having started in an early 19th century building above a burger joint in central Oxford, which feels like only yesterday.”

Gerry Mackay, CEO at Refeyn, said, “With the opening of our new US HQ, the success of Refeyn and mass photometry is evident as we now have over 180 employees globally and are currently recruiting more to support our expanding US customer-base from our new facility. Furthermore, with over 300 scientific papers to date citing mass photometry, this literature highlights the ever-growing capabilities of this unique technology as it is increasingly adopted in life science laboratories around the world.”

Serving as Refeyn’s US Customer Interaction Center, alongside offices, meeting and training rooms, the leading-edge laboratory space in the new HQ now enables customers across North America to visit to run samples and test applications. Refeyn is working to achieve sustainability certification for this laboratory space, which includes a BSL-2 lab, service center, R&D center and applications lab. The new site also facilitates instrument maintenance, customer training sessions, and workshops that all serve to ensure excellence in support for Refeyn’s customers across North America and beyond.

The US HQ grand opening followed the successful third annualMass Photometry Summit 2024, which supported customers by bringing together mass photometry users to share their experiences and how they are pushing the limits of the technology in their own research to provide vital insights for scientific discovery. Refeyn scientists also shared developments in applications and products and gave demonstrations.

From investigating oligomerization and macromolecular assembly to analyzing adeno-associated viruses (AAVs), users’ presentations and posters highlighted much of what mass photometry can do – and how users are driving it even further. Presenters included Dr. Di Wu of the National Institutes of Health, an early adopter of mass photometry, who talked about SEC-MP, a technique for AAV characterization for gene therapy that he and colleagues published in 2023. The day’s keynote speaker was Prof. Priyamvada Acharya from Duke University School of Medicine, whose work focuses on the HIV-1 envelope.

About Refeyn

Refeyn Ltd. specializes in the development, production, and distribution of mass photometry technologies for industry and academia. Mass photometry and macro mass photometry are unique bioanalytical technologies pioneered by Refeyn. By quantifying light scattering from particles in solution, mass photometry enables the measurement of molecular mass at the single-particle level while macro mass photometry enables simultaneous measurement of viral vector size and contrast (a proxy for mass).

Spun out of Oxford University in 2018, the company aims to make its technology accessible to all in the scientific community, enabling users to achieve new and better outcomes. Refeyn has been recognized for its unique approach to biomolecular analysis through multiple awards, including the Royal Society of Chemistry Emerging Technologies Competition. Applications of mass photometry include: Characterization of samples of biomolecules and viral vectors, and analysis of protein oligomerization, biomolecular interactions, and macromolecular assemblies. Utilizing the novel technologies of mass photometry and macro mass photometry, Refeyn’s products are capable of accurate analysis of single particles in solution, in their native state, and without the need for labels, opening up new possibilities for bioanalytics.