It was nice to find an interest by the Leiden Bioscience Park in our business. Last year, we were invited to participate in a little article for the Bio Science Park to get us introduced. It was published in September 2021: https://www.ovbsp.nl/en/members/company-profile/jan-voskuil-aeonian-biotech/
This week, we have been noticed by the local news paper Leidsch Dagblad! The Dutch article was published on 28th March 2022, and the English translation is below.
Translated from Leidsch Dagblad
Antibodies available for everyone.
How Aeonian Biotech aims to create structure in the confusing and sometimes misleading industry of commercial research antibody.
Jan Voskuil: “We want to provide more transparent, stable and trusted sources of antibodies for scientists.”
Antibodies play a crucial and pivotal role in biomedical research; they are needed in large quantities in order to ascertain progress of a new therapy for the treatment of a certain disease. Therefore, it is no surprise that this type of industry is in high demand globally. However, according to Aeonian Biotech, the well-known antibody vendors aren’t always as trustworthy as they claim. This is what Aeonian Biotech, from its location in the Bio Science Park in Leiden, is going to change.
On the grounds of the Leiden Bio Science Park a remarkable web shop is located. Who visits the Aeonian Biotech website will be presented with many options. Including the ability to view products such as “recombinant rabbit antibodies”, “monoclonal mouse antibodies”, and “recombinant versions of classic clones”. Does this tick your boxes? Put it in your digital basket and complete your order.
“Thereafter, I ensure that your antibodies are delivered to your doorstep”, Jan said with a broad smile on his face, ”You will receive a small tube of 100 microlitre clear fluid, a tenth of a millilitre, and then you’re ready to conduct your experiments”.
All of this for just €520 per delivery? Yes! Quite a bargain. When you are happy with your antibodies, you are more than welcome to leave a review. “This is exactly the intention, by doing so we will be able to offer more transparency in our product offerings which will guarantee scientists a range of stable and trustworthy antibodies.”
This might sound very exotic to you, but you can be assured that it isn’t, as Voskuil explains. He is the founder of Aeonian Biotech and has been working with antibodies for a large part of his life and professional career. “There are manufacturers in the whole world that deliver to wholesalers that have their catalogues filled with these types of antibodies”.
Much improved
Jan Voskuil was the Chief Scientific Officer at Everest Biotech, UK, (also an antibody manufacturer) for a long period of time. “There I discovered that it’s not always easy to sell antibodies to end-users, as they often don’t trust commercial antibodies because of false promises made during the sales. Anything could potentially be wrong with these products. Antibodies work because they target a specific protein. But many proteins are members of a protein family, all similar to one another. Some antibodies will cross-react to non-target proteins from the same family as the target protein. If this happens the research results aren’t accurate, which could lead to false results in experiments. This is also the case for the antibody concentration: you will receive a certain volume, but the amount of antibodies per shipping may differ, resulting in different signal intensities from one shipping to the next. In addition, as Jan Voskuil explains, “ I recently saw a case of an antibody that should have worked on a nuclear protein but showed staining of the cytoplasm”.
You would have thought that the trade in research antibodies is very exact, but this is not always the case. “In recent years there have been a lot of improvements in the research antibody trade, but false promises as described still occur which I find a big concern”.
Brexit and his departure from Everest Biotech gave the entrepreneurial scientist the chance to make a difference. In April 2021, he founded Aeonian Biotech Netherlands BV to focus on the sales from their own catalogue. A global research antibody vendor completely different from all others: “The antibodies of the Aeonian Biotech catalogue are warranted by only using those with convincing proof of their applicability. This will give the buyer assurance over the product quality. To accomplish this, we make use of our proprietary quality score system, and of trusted suppliers who produce their antibodies from cell lines in bioreactors. You always receive exactly the same antibody in the correct concentration which means that the reproducibility of your research will be guaranteed. It might seem very logical, but Aeonian Biotech is the first in the world who consistently offers this. His intended audience mostly consists of universities and biotechnology companies. Even though Jan Voskuil has just started, he values his company very highly. “I know that there is a high demand for trustworthy antibodies. I’ve been actively working in this industry for a long time, I know a lot of people and have written multiple publications about this topic. People know my name, now they need to be made aware that Aeonian Biotech exists. This is something I am currently working on.”
Aeonian Biotech
Product: Delivering antibodies that are trustworthy and achieve the promised results consistently from batch to batch.
Where: The Biopartner 3 building in the Leiden Bio Science Park
Who: Founder Jan Voskuil (62)
Antibodies? These are proteins who are produced by your immune system in order to fight infectious diseases caused by bacteria and viruses.
The name? Aeonian means everlasting, because when scientists depend on commercial antibodies for the long term, problems can potentially occur. Aeonian Biotech only sells antibodies that do not cause such problems. For every follow-up order, you will receive the exact same quality product as before.