History
Kirk Schroeder and Brad Neagle, the founders of Essen Instruments, got their start making instruments for drug discovery researchers with the development of the FLIPR system in the early 1990’s.
After working in the military/aerospace industry for several years, they founded their first company to develop FLIPR in collaboration with the UpJohn Corporation. The FLIPR technology has grown since that time into an industry standard platform for performing a variety of cell based fluorescent assays. Hundreds of units have been sold worldwide, and in 2000 they received the SBS Accomplishment Award for their work from the Society for Biomolecular Screening.
They founded Essen in 1999 to pursue the development of new tools for drug discovery, with the first being the IonWorks HT, High Throughput Electrophysiology System. This groundbreaking technology allows scientists to quantify ion-channel activity in individual cells at measurement throughputs never before possible.
The team at Essen Instruments continues to work on several new drug discovery tools that will be marketed directly by Essen in the coming months and years.