UK company awarded for diagnostic breathalyzer

A UK diagnostics company developing a breathalyzer for disease, has won a global award for its Breath Biopsy platform.

As one of the three winners of the global Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) Catalyst Challenge, the company will share the £720,000 award. The platform is a non-invasive system that can easily and accurately capture and analyze breath samples for the presence of trace chemicals related to disease activity. The technology will be applied to find volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in breath that could help speed up diagnosis of IPF, and catch the disease at an earlier stage. T

Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical, said: “We are thrilled to win this award which recognizes the potential of our Breath Biopsy platform for the early detection of IPF. It is already being used in clinical trials for a wide range of cancers, including lung and colorectal cancer, and has recently been integrated into a major clinical development program for a novel drug candidate for respiratory disease.”

IPF is a chronic, irreversible and incurable disease that kills as many people as breast cancer every year, however, it is less widely known, resulting in a lack of innovative solutions, funding and research. The IPF Catalyst Challenge was created by Three Lakes Partners, a venture philanthropy committed to ending IPF, to engage global innovators and entrepreneurs in the tech, healthcare, and scientific research communities to find quality-of-life solutions for IPF patients and their caregivers.