Diagnostics company, Owlstone Medical, has raised $15 million to drive the global commercialisation of its Breath Biopsy device.

The company’s Breath Biopsy device is intended to be used for the early detection of diseases and within precision medicine. The device potentially enables diseases to be diagnosed quicker, when treatments are more effective, resulting in better patient outcomes.

Breath Biopsy can also be used to enable precision medicine, ensuring that the right drug is given to the right patient when needed, helping to improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.

The funds will help Owlstone Medical bring its lung cancer Breath Biopsy test to market, deepen the early detection pipeline with ongoing trials across multiple cancers, and further grow its existing precision medicine services to the pharmaceutical industry.

The Breath Biopsy device is currently being tested in the world’s largest breath-based clinical trials for lung and colorectal cancer. The device is also being used in the PAN cancer trial in collaboration with Cancer Research UK, which is studying the early detection of eight different cancer types in breath.

More so, Owlstone Medical Breath Biopsy Service enables academic, clinical and pharmaceutical partners to explore breath-based diagnostics or biomarkers to optimise precision medicine activities.

The funding round was co-led by Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm of Li Ka-shing, an investor in leading technology companies, and current investor Aviva Ventures, the venture capital arm of Aviva, a global company in insurance.

Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical, commented: “We are delighted that Horizons Ventures has joined forces with Aviva to co-lead this funding round. Since founding the company, we have established Breath Biopsy as a new industry category and are confident that this funding will allow us to demonstrate the significant value that we can deliver from our market leading position in early detection and precision medicine.”

Horizons Ventures’ Patrick Zhang, said: “We are pleased to join Aviva Ventures and other key strategic investors in this financing round. We believe Owlstone Medical is positioned to become a strong player in the fields of early cancer detection and precision medicine across multiple therapeutic areas. We are confident that Owlstone Medical’s Breath Biopsy platform could have a major impact on healthcare.”

Dr Doug Wright, medical director at Aviva, commented: “Aviva Ventures invests in entrepreneurs with high growth businesses and has identified Owlstone Medical’s technology as being strategically important to our business. The expansion of our partnership with them signifies continued confidence in the company and in Breath Biopsy as an entirely new means of early disease detection, screening and treatment monitoring that could make a real difference to people’s health.”