At the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria, Dr John Dangerfield and Dr Brian Salmons along with Dr Christoph Metzner developed a technology for quick and easy modification of the surfaces of biological membranes and termed it 'molecular painting'.

Molecular painting (MP) reagents are non-antibody based functional biomolecules, which naturally associate with the external face of all biological membranes.

Molecular painting can be applied in the research lab or developed as a tool for improving vaccines; in purifying and isolating viruses and micro-vesicles; and in targeting and increasing transduction of viral gene delivery vehicles. It is a novel and highly effective technique that can be delivered to the client as a made-to-order reagent in a tube or as a self-constructing kit.

In diagnostics, MP reagents can be mixed into clinical or biological samples to tag, isolate (concentrate/purify), detect and quantify viruses, which cause infection; or tag exosomes that may signal a certain disease status. In vaccine development, MP reagents can be used for immunomodulation purposes by signalling and targeting vaccine agents to specific immune cell types that are better able to give an immune response, such as dendritic cells and other antigen presenting cells. In the domain of gene therapy, MP reagents can be used to direct or re-direct the pathway of entry for the gene delivery vehicle to a chosen target cell.

The technology was acknowledged by investors and commercial promise was confirmed through an industrial grant during 2009 and 2010, which was awarded to the developers of the technology by a large biotech company, thus creating success venture for Anovasia. Strong intellectual property and positive market response sparked Dr John Dangerfield, Mr William Ong and Dr Brian Salmons to establish Anovasia in 2011 in order to commercialization the technology. Indirectly, the company is also still strongly supported by the excellent basic research that Dr Metzner continues to do at the University in Vienna.

During 2011, Anovasia was awarded a small mentorship grant from SPRING Singapore through collaboration with the BANSEA (Business Angel Network SE Asia). This grant gave access to expert advice, which ultimately led to Anovasia taking-on several, new strategic shareholders (who each made a small investment) during the late 2011. "These were people who could add value to the company in important places where manpower and expertise was lacking (such as finance and production) and enable Anovasia to move forward with its Molecular Painting technology without additional third party funding," said Dr John Dangerfield, co-founder, Anovasia.