Making the leap - from scientist to full-time start-up C-suite - Annual Report 2024

15 June, 2025

The Institute has always thrived through renewal of our Investigator cohort and this year we are pleased to see that three of our researchers are moving into full- time commercial roles at their respective deep tech start-ups.

Professor Justin Hodgkiss (Co-Director and Principal Investigator) is embarking on the journey of CEO in Advemto, and announced first close of their seed capital raise in late November. Advemto spun out in 2022 to commercialise technology developed at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) for time- resolved fluorescence instrumentation.

More recently, they have refined their focus on the high throughput biomarker discovery market for biotech and pharmaceutical industry clients. The ultrafast laser spectroscopy technology that Advemto has developed is able to provide a step change in resolution, and throughput for the fast-moving market of human therapeutics and diagnostics. Advemto's transformational biomarker mapping allows labs to identify hundreds of biomarkers simultaneously, surpassing the limitations of traditional fluorescent methods.

Dr Olivia Ogilvie and Dr Laura Domigan of Opo Bio

Dr Laura Domigan (Principal Investigator) is taking on the Chief Scientist role full-time at Opo Bio, a B2B company creating high-quality cell lines for precision fermentation, that can be used in a range of applications, from collagen for cosmetics to animal-free food and biotech ingredients.

Having a longstanding interest in taking science to the market, Laura has worked through a few commercial options related to her research over the seven years she was with the MacDiarmid Institute. The market timing, highly capable team she's pulled together and maturing Opo Bio technology stack have supported her confidence in making the move from academia to the commercial world this year. Raising capital in a highly constrained environment has not been easy, but Laura, her co-founder Vaughan Feisst and their Opo Bio CEO, Dr Olivia Ogilvie (MacDiarmid alumna), have stood out from the crowds and succeeded in setting the company up to scale and grow in 2025.

From left: Marama Labs founders Dr Brendan Darby, Dr Matthias Meyer and Professor Eric Le Ru

Professor Eric Le Ru (Principal Investigator) is committing most of his time as Chief Science Officer at Marama Labs, a company that Eric co-founded in 2019 with two other MacDiarmid Institute alumni, Dr Brendan Darby (his PhD student at the time) and Dr Matthias Meyer. The Marama Labs team have recently developed further capability in analysing pharmaceutical formulations. Their proprietary analytical equipment, CloudSpec^TM, quantifies the therapeutic content of nano-formulations such as RNA in Liquid Nanoparticles in seconds, with a unique accurate and precise fluorescence-free technology. The company continues to pursue ambitious R&D projects that enhance their ability to service the biotech, pharmaceutical and fermentation markets. Eric’s extensive scientific expertise developed over the ten years he's spent with the Institute at VUW is pivotal to progressing the company's entry into new applications and markets.

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