With many promising applications, especially biomedical ones, microfluidics are a key issue for French and European sovereignty. CEA-Leti has recognized expertise in this field, including in microfluidic chips, which act as powerful laboratories condensed onto a chip.
Facilitating the industrial scaling-up of microfluidic chips
To go even further, CEA-Leti has partnered with Infiplast, a plasturgy company with activities devoted in part to biomedical applications. In the first quarter of 2025, after jointly winning the call for projects issued by the “2030 France in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes" program, the stakeholders created a new subsidiary. It has a budget of 3.2 million euros over a three-year period.
FRAMES (Filière Rhône-Alpes pour la Microfluidique En Santé, Rhône-Alpes subsidiary for microfluidics in health) essentially aims to develop a shared lab-to-fab platform to facilitate the design and industrial scaling-up of microfluidic chips, especially for healthcare applications.
“For CEA-Leti, this involves providing extra value to our partners, by offering an optimal solution for the industrial scaling-up of our microfluidic technologies, such as FlowStretch. The project enables us to bridge research and industrial applications in the broader health sector, and to accelerate the transfer of our technological innovations in microfluidics," summarized Yann de Boysson, who oversees CEA-Leti's industrial partnerships. “We contribute our technological and technical skills, while Infiplast contributes thermoplastic injection molding expertise, industrial scaling-up, and manufacturing capabilities for small and medium healthcare series."
The company recently announced that it was doubling its biomedical production area, part of which will host specialized cutting-edge equipment for microfluidic chips.
From in vitro diagnostics to customized medicine
As part of FRAMES, our partnership with Infiplast will help accelerate the transition from laboratory microfluidics to industrial applications. These will initially involve in vitro diagnostics, bioproduction, cell and gene therapies, customized medicine, and organoids-on-chip.
“Our integrated microfluidic platform is a remarkable preindustrial tool," Yann de Boysson added. “With clean rooms and ultramodern equipment, it enables us to manufacture, machine, process, assemble, and control prototypes or small series for R&D purposes."
The ambition goes even further:
“Ultimately, we would like to cover the entire microfluidics value chain," declared Yann de Boysson. “We have already started identifying French and European integrators capable of producing machines that drive microfluidic chips."