Skip to content

Pyxa — Stellaromics

Stellaromics debuts Pyxa at AGBT 2026 as the "first commercial 3D spatial imager," opening a category that until now has been research-prototype-only.

At a glance

  • Vendor / launch date / availability: Stellaromics; AGBT 2026 newcomer launch (Marco Island, Feb 22–25); commercial availability and pre-order terms TBD per GEN AGBT 2026 recap, Feb–Mar 2026.
  • Chemistry / modality: 3D spatial imaging — specifics (probe chemistry, optical sectioning approach, z-resolution) TBD; Stellaromics's AGBT messaging emphasizes "first commercial 3D spatial imager" without disclosing the underlying assay class per GEN AGBT recap (vendor PR — no independent benchmark).
  • Plex / panel: TBD — no gene-count or protein-plex figure disclosed at AGBT.
  • Throughput / sample type: TBD — no per-sample run-time, tissue-thickness ceiling, or sample-format compatibility figure disclosed at AGBT.
  • Read length / accuracy: n/a (imager, not sequencer).
  • List price / cost-per-sample: TBD.

What's new vs prior generation

Pyxa is a category launch rather than an incremental refresh. Existing commercial spatial imagers (Xenium, CosMx, MERSCOPE, Visium HD) are all 2D — they image thin tissue sections and reconstruct neighborhoods within a single z-plane. Pyxa's pitch is to image native 3D tissue volumes and produce single-molecule data with true z-coordinates, which would let users study tumor architecture, vascular branching, and tissue-scale gradients that 2D platforms see only by serial-section reconstruction. Independent of how the chemistry actually works (which Stellaromics has not disclosed at AGBT), the marketing position is "the first 3D entrant," with Bruker's PaintScape as the most directly comparable roadmap claim from an incumbent.

Headline benchmarks

"First commercial 3D spatial imager" (vendor PR — no independent benchmark) — GEN AGBT 2026 recap, Feb–Mar 2026.

No third-party benchmark, no spec table, no demo dataset URL has been published as of mid-May 2026. Stellaromics's category-defining claim is unverifiable from public sources at this point; AACR 2026 and follow-on user-group meetings are the next likely venues for spec disclosure.

Reception / competitive context

Stellaromics is a category-creating newcomer and was covered as one of the AGBT 2026 spatial surprise stories alongside Singular Genomics G4X and the Bruker / NanoString consolidation. The most directly comparable claim is Bruker PaintScape, which Bruker positions as "3D genome visualization" on its spatial roadmap. The two are likely to converge into a 3D-spatial subcategory over 2026–2027; until either ships, both are roadmap-only. The GenomeWeb spatial recap places Stellaromics squarely in the "AGBT showcased the diversity of spatial genomics" narrative arc.

  • Closest competitor on the AGBT 2026 roadmap: Bruker PaintScape — the other 3D entrant.
  • 2D in-situ context: 10x Xenium RNA+Protein, CosMx mouse WT + 64-protein, MERSCOPE Ultra, Singular G4X.
  • AACR 2026 cross-axis: 3D-genome / tissue-architecture — Pyxa, once shipping, would be the most natural AACR posters-on-tumor-architecture spatial-imager, where today users mostly serial-section Visium HD or Xenium.
  • Bioconductor: no Pyxa reader exists yet; if Stellaromics adopts the Zarr-based SpatialData container, a SpatialData integration path opens immediately.

Sources