Restoring Retinal Health
Maculaser ERG-based technology enables real-time and personalized control of the temperature of the retina during non-damaging ophthalmic laser treatments.
Our industry-disruptive goal is disease prevention by providing effective and safe laser treatments for retinal disorders that impact the everyday life of millions of people worldwide.
News Feed
Congratulations to Mooud Amirkavei on her exceptional defense of her PhD thesis titled "Unraveling the Effects of Hormetic Heat Shock as a Treatment for Age-Related Macular Degeneration." Her research holds utmost relevance, particularly in the context of emerging therapies for…
Maculaser, a company developing treatments for retinal disorders that affect millions of people worldwide, was awarded the Instrumentarium Science Foundation Silmu grant (50 k€) intended to support scientific entrepreneurship. Thank you @tiedesaatio for supporting us!
Maculaser's novel temperature-controlled subthreshold laser therapy and method for treating diabetic macular edemas is currently being presented at major US based #PhotonicsWest #BIOS conference by our partner company Modulight! #ophthalmology #retina #maculaser
A novel thermal dosimetry -controlled subthreshold laser treatment modality might change the treatment scheme for many common retinal diseases like age-related macular degeneration.
#maculardegeneration #maculaser

Novel subthreshold retinal laser treatment with ERG-based thermal dosimetry activates hormetic heat...
Boosting natural mechanisms to retain cellular homeostasis and combat oxidative stress by inducing a hormetic heat sho...
www.biorxiv.org
#Maculaser’s CSO Teemu Turunen presented the results of our clinical usability trial in Visionarium XX, a conference for wide-scope vision research. Important milestone on our way to clinical trials investigating the efficacy of the laser-induced heat shock therapy of the #retina
#Maculaser and Vinberg Lab in University of Utah have started a collaborative project to develop novel method and technology that can enable early detection and monitoring the progression of Age-related Maculaser Degeneration (#AMD).
#retina #diagnostics
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Meet the #Maculaser team in Denver at #ARVO2022! Check our poster on 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Wednesday, May 4 (poster board Number F0219): ERG-based thermal dosimetry for subthreshold retinal laser therapy in anaesthetized pigs. #retina #ophthalmology
https://arvo2022.arvo.org/meetings/virtual/poster/J5L4fokanx4S4HJbG
A novel method used by Maculaser has been published in a distinguished peer reviewed biomedical journal.
Research continues to investigate the effect of temperature-controlled laser treatment on heat shock response and autophagy! #Ophthalmology

Retinal Temperature Determination Based on Photopic Porcine Electroretinogram - PubMed
The introduced ERG-based method for controlling SLT could improve the repeatability, safety, and efficacy of the treat...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
#Maculaser seed finance round is now completed with #Businessfinland support. The round totaled 2.1 MEUR, enabling fast development of novel temperature-controlled #retina #laser and planned #clinicaltrials #medtech #ophthalmology #maculardegeneration #diabeticretinopathy
We are excited to announce a major milestone, the closing of our seed funding round of 1.2MEUR led by @Innovestor ventures with participation from institutional and private investors. Thank you for your support on our journey to prevent blindness. #startup #funding #medtech
The Innovation of the Year Award by Aalto University’s School of Science was granted today for the innovation: “Maculaser - Temperature-controlled laser therapy for retinal disorders" #innovation #science #research #ophthalmology #retina #medtech #aalto #aaltouniversity
#Helsinki #medtech #startup @Maculaser introduces temperature-control to non-damaging #retina laser treatment to cure retinal diseases, the leading cause for blindness. The startup takes part in #HealthIncubatorHelsinki.
Read Maculaser's story ➡️

Maculaser combats blindness – Health Capital Helsinki
Helsinki medtech startup Maculaser introduces temperature-control to non-damaging retina laser treatment to cure retinal diseases. Read more.
healthcapitalhelsinki.fi
Maculaser is excited to be part of #health100 event by @UpgradedFI. Meet us in our virtual booth to discuss about the future of retinal treatments #maculaser #startups #ophthalmology #retina
Maculaser selected for #Health Incubator Helsinki that now kicks off with 11 #startups with high growth potential #maculaser #medtech #ophthalmology
With more than 60 #Medtech and healthcare #startups at Medtech Pitch Day event in today in Lübeck, Germany!
Key benefits and GOALS

Early intervention

Consistent outcome

Cost savings
Significant reduction of the current $400B direct healthcare system cost caused by the management of retinal diseases.
Solution
Treatment aim
Heat the fundus to the therapeutic temperature to induce regenerative effects of temperature elevation without damaging retinal tissue.
Problem
Lack of patient-specific thermal dosimetry and safety controls currently limits the efficacy and utilization of the treatments.
Maculaser solution
Electroretinography (ERG)-based temperature-control enables personalized non-damaging laser treatments consistently landing to the therapeutic target temperature.
SCIENCE & RESEARCH
Heating of the retinal tissue and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) causes a range of beneficial effects on unhealthy tissues, including elevated therapeutic heat shock protein production, downregulation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), thinning of Bruch’s membrane, reduction of drusens, resolution of subretinal fluid, prevention of apoptosis, and activation of autophagy [Refs. 1-15].
These heat-activated mechanisms pursue to reduce oxidative stress, prevent the aggregation of proteins, improve the transport of nutrients, and enhance RPEs cytoprotective mechanisms, i.e., they stimulate the natural, biological healing response of the RPE [Refs. 16, 17]. Laser-induced heat shock activates mechanisms in the RPE that could retard or even reverse the progression of major retinal diseases.
Non-damaging laser treatments aim to induce regenerative effects of the temperature elevation without damaging retinal tissues. The beneficial effect of non-damaging laser treatments has been demonstrated in several clinical trials for common macular diseases such as diabetic macular edema (DME), retinal vein occlusion (RVO), chronic central serous chorioretinopathy (cCSC) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) [Refs. 1, 2, 18-30]. However, the therapeutic temperature range of the treatment is narrow, and the laser-induced temperature elevation varies between patients due to physiological differences in eye opacity, blood circulation, and the level of pigmentation. Maculaser offers patient-specific temperature and safety controls to conduct personally optimized laser treatments.
Timeline
Maculaser is currently preparing for the clinical trials after successful preclinical tests, which demonstrated that the core dosimetry technology works, and also showed that the treatment successfully activates the cellular-level heat shock response as expected.
CURRENT
PRECLINICAL PHASE
A
CLINICAL PHASE
A
PRODUCT LAUNCH

PRECLINICAL
PHASE
CURRENT
CLINICAL PHASE
PRODUCT LAUNCH
We are looking for additional clinics and ophthalmologists to join the clinical phase (multi-site / pivotal trial). Please contact us to get more information.
Our Story
Maculaser is a clinical phase medical technology company developing novel laser therapy for retinal diseases. Company’s technology solution enables real-time and personalized control of the therapeutic heat dose in the retina during non-damaging ophthalmic laser treatments.
Our history dates back to 2013 to research focusing on controlled induction of therapeutic heat shock proteins in the retinal pigment epithelium layer in order to battle degenerative changes in the eye. The invention to use electroretinography (ERG) signal to control laser–induced retinal heating initiated the ongoing research program in the team of Prof. Ari Koskelainen at the Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Finland, in collaboration with leading AMD and medical retina specialists from various university hospitals. The science behind Maculaser deep tech solution has already been tested in peer-reviewed scientific publications (see below).
Company’s industry-disruptive goal is to make early disease prevention a reality by providing effective and safe use of lasers for central macular disorders that impact the everyday life of millions of people worldwide.
Maculaser in scientific literature
Amirkavei, M., Kaikkonen, O., Turunen, T., Meller, A., Åhlgren, J., Kvanta, A., André, H., Koskelainen, A., Novel subthreshold retinal laser treatment with ERG-based thermal dosimetry activates hormetic heat response in pig RPE in vivo, bioRxiv 2022.11.29.518343; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.11.29.518343
Kaikkonen, O., Turunen, T., Meller, A., Åhlgren, J., Koskelainen, A., Retinal temperature determination based on photopic porcine electroretinogram, IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2021 Sep 10;PP. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2021.3111533
Amirkavei, M., Pitkänen, M., Kaikkonen, O., Kaarniranta, K., André, H., & Koskelainen, A. (2020). Induction of Heat Shock Protein 70 in Mouse RPE as an In Vivo Model of Transpupillary Thermal Stimulation. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 21(6). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21062063
Pitkänen, M., Kaikkonen, O., & Koskelainen, A. (2017). A Novel Method for Mouse Retinal Temperature Determination Based on ERG Photoresponses. Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 45(10), 2360–2372. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-017-1872-y
Pitkänen, M., Kaikkonen, O., & Koskelainen, A. (2019). In vivo monitoring of mouse retinal temperature by ERG photoresponses. Experimental Eye Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exer.2019.05.015
Management Team

Jani Tirronen
CEO, Co-Founder

Teemu Turunen
Chief Scientific Officer, PhD, Co-Founder

Ossi Kaikkonen
Head of Product, Co-Founder

Jaakko Nieminen
CTO, PhD
Contact Us
Get in touch
Maculaser Oy
c/o Terkko Health Hub, Building 14
Haartmaninkatu 4
00290 Helsinki, Finland
info[at]maculaser.com
Co-operation contacts
We are currently looking for co-operation with:
- medical retina specialists
- medtech investors
- industrial partnerhips in the field of ophthalmic lasers and optics