Owlstone Medical Establishes Scientific Advisory Board

Owlstone Medical, a diagnostics company developing a breathalyzer for disease, has appointed Professor Sir Bruce Ponder FRCP FMedSci FRS to its newly established Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) with immediate effect. The SAB will form a key strategic resource, providing unique research perspectives and clinical expertise as the company introduces a new non-invasive diagnostic modality focused on cancer, inflammatory disease and infectious disease.
 
Professor Sir Bruce Ponder is Emeritus Professor of Oncology at the University of Cambridge and was the inaugural director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute (CRUKCI). He was knighted for Services to Medicine in the 2008 and was awarded the 2013 Cancer Research UK Lifetime Achievement Prize.

“There is a great need to detect cancer earlier, and I strongly believe that Owlstone Medical’s technology enabling non-invasive diagnosis through breath can make a big difference in our approach to cancer screening. I am excited to be contributing to the growth and future direction of Owlstone Medical,” Ponder said.
 
Ponder has made enormous contributions to the field of oncology, including setting up one of the first specialist clinics for families with cancer, involvement in the discovery of several genes predisposing to cancer, and advances in our understanding of how cancer develops. His group at the CRUKCI is investigating how variations in multiple genes combine to contribute to susceptibility to breast and lung cancer, with the aim to identify high risk groups for targeted cancer screening and prevention.
 
Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical, said: “With over four decades’ work in cancer research we are honoured that Professor Sir Bruce Ponder is joining our SAB. His tremendous depth of experience and knowledge will be hugely valuable to Owlstone Medical as we develop our Breath Biopsy platform for early detection of cancer and realize our ambition to save 100,000 lives and $1.5 billion in healthcare costs.”
 
Owlstone Medical has developed a breathalyzer for disease. With a focus on non-invasive diagnostics for cancer, inflammatory disease and infectious disease, the company aims to save 100,000 lives and $1.5B in healthcare costs.
 
Capable of detecting disease biomarkers in breath, Owlstone Medical’s Breath Biopsy platform is a new diagnostic modality with the potential to transition to quick, easy to use, point-of-care tests. The award winning ReCIVA Breath Sampler ensures reliable collection of breath samples. VOC (Volatile organic compound) biomarkers present in breath are accurately detected and analyzed using proven microchip chemical sensor technology (Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry, FAIMS). The Breath Biopsy platform can be used in clinical diagnostics and precision medicine with applications in cancer and a wide range of other conditions. Highly sensitive and selective, these tests facilitate the selection of patients most likely to respond to a particular therapy, and allow for early diagnosis when treatments are more effective and more lives can be saved.
 
Owlstone Medical is currently developing tests for lung and colorectal cancer, two of the most common cancer killers worldwide, and for asthma stratification by therapeutic response. The company also provides Breath Biopsy products and services to academic, clinical and pharmaceutical partners who want to develop breath based biomarkers for their own applications.
 
Owlstone Inc was founded in 2004 as a spin-out from the engineering department at the University of Cambridge, and is a profitable business selling FAIMS technology to military and industrial customers globally. Owlstone Medical was spun out from Owlstone Inc in 2016 to develop and commercialize FAIMS in medical applications.
 
Owlstone Medical is headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom, with offices in London.