MagneSensors was founded in 1997 as a joint venture spin off of two San Diego companies, Biomagnetic Technologies and Quantum Magnetics. MagneSensors was formed to commercialize a powerful magnetic sensor technology based on high temperature superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs). MagneSensors is an entirely separate company and has ownership of all the patents, processes, proprietary information, and processing facilities related to high temperature SQUID technology.
“the firm was saying the system is a prototype instrument but I feel it is a commercial grade instrument”
“the contract resulted in the best results among all the contracts I have ever monitored”
NASA’s written review of MagneSensors’ Phase II SBIR
The high temperature SQUID technology was developed at Biomagnetic Technologies from 1987 to 1997 with substantial government funding along with internal R&D funding. The technology was broadly patented, published in Nature, and led to numerous invited presentations in the U.S. and abroad.
In its early years from 1997-2002, MagneSensors developed superconducting magnetic sensors suitable for use in commercial and military environments. Funding was primarily through government contracts including those from NASA, U.S. Navy, National Science Foundation and subcontracts from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
There were also commercial sales of magnetic sensor chips to IBM and the Navy. While the initial emphasis was on sensor development, we also built and delivered instrumentation, including a novel instrument for the non-destructive evaluation of sub-surface cracks in aircraft for NASA.
In 1999 MagneSensors received a research contract from Shimadzu Corporation for magnetic assay studies. The high quality data led to a second contract and the development of a first generation magnetic assay prototype instrument the following year. MagneSensors retained all rights to the instrument and technology.
The magnetic assay results were so encouraging that company focused its efforts entirely on magnetic assays for life science applications. The majority of subsequent development funding has stemmed from grants from NIH.
The team forming MagneSensors has been together for over 20 years. The company has a core team of scientists and an excellent group of consultants, including those with extensive expertise in the relevant life science fields. MagneSensors collaborates with numerous leading academic institutions. The Children’s Hospital of Boston was a subcontractor for a multi-year NIH program in sepsis diagnostics and Moores UCSD Cancer Center is a subcontractor for a rare cell assay program for leukemia.