# Ilika: Advancing micro-battery technology with Stereax milestone (LON:IKA)

- Link: https://www.directorstalkinterviews.com/ilika-advancing-micro-battery-technology-with-stereax-production-milestone/4121213728
- Published: 2025-08-26T14:19:27+01:00
- Author: Amilia Stone

**[Ilika Plc](https://www.directorstalkinterviews.com/company/ilika-plc/ika.l) **(
[LON:IKA](https://www.directorstalkinterviews.com/company/ilika-plc/ika.l)) Chief
Executive Officer Graeme Purdy caught up with DirectorsTalk to discuss the breakthrough
in manufacturing qualification for Stereax micro batteries and outlines the next
steps as production and customer deliveries approach.

**Q1: Graeme, could you just explain for us why are Stereax micro-batteries revolutionary?**

**A1:** I think it boils down to their unique characteristics. Stereax micro-batteries
are designed so that they are as miniaturised as possible for the amount of energy
that they contain. So, they’ve got a high volumetric and gravimetric energy density
so basically it makes them compact batteries.

On top of that they deliver a significant current, i.e. the amount of power, for
their size, and this is really important for a lot of these electroceutical applications
that Stereax is designed for. A lot of them rely on data transfer and you need to
be able to pull a certain current from the battery to be able to drive the bluetooth
chip that’s typically used for transferring the data. So, so if you’ve got a battery
that packs a decent punch for its size, then you can power all of that electronics
very effectively.

**Q2: Could you explain a little more about what you mean by the manufacturing qualification
now being complete?**

**A:** That’s basically what we’ve been up to for the past six months or so across
at the Cirtec facility in Lowell in Massachusetts, in the US. We completed the installation
of the equipment at the turn of the year and we’ve been running the equipment to
be able to make batteries for testing and qualification, as we say here.

So effectively, we take batches of these batteries and then we characterise them,
we analyse them, and we test their characteristics, when we’re happy with that, 
we declare that we have completed manufacturing qualification.

Effectively, that means that we have put our batteries through that manufacturing
process and we’re now at a point where we’re saying, right, we can commence production.

**Q3: So, if production’s commenced, does that mean then consumer deliveries are
imminent?**

**A3:** Well, depends on your definition of imminent. We are planning to commence
customer deliveries within this calendar year, probably towards the end of the calendar
year. Actually, that is just a reflection of the amount of time that it takes us
to put the wafers that we actually start the manufacturing process with through 
that whole process, put the batteries together, i.e. stack them, and then test them.
We have to run a minimum test programme before we release the batteries to our customers.

All of that will take us up to the end of the year.

**Q4: Are you still convinced that the partnership with Cirtec Medical was the right
choice for Ilika?**

**A4:** Absolutely. We searched long and hard for an appropriate partner.

The characteristics that we were looking for in a manufacturing partner for Stereax
were they had to be US-based because we are trying to ensure that the supply chain
is short and that actually we are close to the medical device OEMs that are planning
to use this particular technology. You’ll remember that we’ve released data in the
past demonstrating that the majority of our commercial opportunities are actually
based in the US.

Secondly, we wanted an organisation that had a complementary business model to ours
and Cirtec is a very well-established manufacturing partner. As a result, they were
very open to this licensing asset-light model that we’ve got at Ilika where they
would basically take a licence to our technology, we would transfer it to their 
facility, and they would be responsible for the execution of the manufacturing activities.

Thirdly, of course, they have got a fantastic business development team that is 
very energetic, very well connected and we wanted to add momentum to our commercial
pipeline.

**Q5: You touched on this earlier, but what can we expect to hear about next relating
to Stereax?**

**A5:** With this announcement, it fired the starting pistol on the manufacturing
process. Clearly, as I explained a few minutes ago, we’ve got to put these batteries
through testing and then commence customer delivery. So, it’s really some news around
that test progress, making sure that they do what they say on the tin in the first
batches that get released and then putting them in the hands of customers.

So, that’s the sort of news flow you can expect over the next few months.

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