Owlstone Medical, a diagnostics company developing a breathalyser, has been announced as the winner of this year’s (2018) MacRobert Award by the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Awards
The company’s Breath Biopsy platform, including the ReCIVA Breath Sampler, has opened up the potential for earlier diagnosis and precision medicine across cancer, inflammatory disease and infectious disease.
During the Royal Academy of Engineering’s awards dinner, which took place at the Tower of London on Wednesday 27 June, Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal presented the Owlstone Medical team with the MacRobert Award gold medal and a £50,000 prize.
“Owlstone Medical stood out because of the extraordinary engineering that its breath sampler, and the associated breath biopsy platform, required to bring these technologies to life,” commented Dr Dame Sue Ion DBE FREng FRS, chair of the MacRobert Award judging panel. “The company has demonstrated exceptional innovation at every stage of development; from the mask used to help capture breath, the tubes that help collect the samples, to the software and hardware designed to ensure the tests are reliable and repeatable.
“Owlstone Medical has now created a device that is dependable and non-intrusive, and has the potential to revolutionise the way we diagnose and treat a vast array of diseases. The societal benefit is clear to see, and I believe they could realise their vision of saving more than a billion dollars in global healthcare costs and saving hundreds of thousands of lives.”
Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical, said: “It’s a huge honour to have won the MacRobert Award and for the whole company to be recognised for their hard work over the last three years in developing the Breath Biopsy platform and establishing breath diagnostics as a new industry category. We know that in cancer, early detection is our greatest opportunity to save lives — our company mission is to save 100,000 lives and we won't stop until we achieve this.”
The MacRobert Award is the UK’s longest running and most prestigious award for engineering innovation. First presented in 1969, the award has recognised the extraordinary potential of innovations that have changed the world we live in. It recognises outstanding innovation, tangible societal benefit and proven commercial success.