Owlstone Medical, a global leader in Breath Biopsy for early disease detection and precision medicine applications, has secured funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This funding round comprises a $5 million equity investment to advance Owlstone’s Breath Biopsy platform and $1.5 million in grant funding to develop breath-based diagnostics and identify breath biomarkers for tuberculosis (TB) and HIV.
Owlstone, with support from the foundation, has been developing new cost-effective detection technologies for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that could serve as markers of diseases that disproportionately affect the developing world. With this latest funding round, Owlstone seeks to understand whether this approach is suitable for TB and HIV detection and to explore a path by which breath-based testing could be deployed for rapid screening and earlier diagnosis.
This $5 million equity investment will support advancements of the Breath Biopsy platform, including expanding the Breath Biopsy VOC Atlas1 database and developing a remote-use real-time breath analyzer. This funding component will be the first time the foundation has taken an equity position in a breath diagnostics company. And the $1.5 million in grant funding to support the identification of breath biomarkers will be used across two projects:
1.) TB: In partnership with the University of Cape Town, South Africa, Owlstone aims to identify a panel of on-breath candidate VOC biomarkers that differentiate TB subjects from healthy controls and to develop breath diagnostic approaches based on exploiting the metabolic features of TB using in vitro approaches.
2.) HIV: Working with investigators from Imperial College, UK, and Oxford University, UK, Owlstone will analyze VOCs from blood samples from subjects with HIV and will work to identify a panel of on-breath candidate VOC biomarkers that correlate with HIV viral load.
In these areas, the data collected will also be used to populate Owlstone’s Breath Biopsy VOC Atlas further. And these activities are complementary to this project are underway with the US Department of Defense (the EXHALE project) where Owlstone is building a handheld device capable of non-invasive detection of pre-symptomatic respiratory infectious disease, offering more support for Owlstone’s ability to advance the foundation’s mission.
KEY QUOTES:
“Early diagnosis is a critical determinant of health outcomes. By enabling swift and non-invasive detection of disease, breath analysis has the potential to save lives and dramatically reduce the burden of illness in resource-constrained settings. This investment by the Gates Foundation is testament to how Owlstone is uniquely positioned to transform infectious disease diagnosis through our Breath Biopsy platform. The funds will accelerate both the discovery and validation of VOC biomarkers, and the development of a fieldable, low-cost, simple to use device.”
- Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical
