The Aryavarth Express
Aryavarth (Bengaluru): Owlstone Medical, a pioneer in Breath Biopsy® technologies for early disease detection and precision medicine, announced today a significant funding boost of $6.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This funding includes a $5 million equity investment in the company and a $1.5 million grant aimed at advancing breath-based diagnostics for tuberculosis (TB) and HIV.
Owlstone’s Breath Biopsy platform is at the forefront of non-invasive diagnostic technology, using volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in breath to detect diseases early. The Gates Foundation’s investment will support the expansion of the Breath Biopsy VOC Atlas database and the development of a real-time, remote-use breath analyzer, marking the foundation’s first equity stake in a breath diagnostics company.
“With this investment, we aim to enhance our capabilities to diagnose infectious diseases quickly and non-invasively, potentially transforming how diseases like TB and HIV are detected and managed in developing countries,” said Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO of Owlstone Medical.
The grant funding will be utilized in two main projects. In collaboration with the University of Cape Town, Owlstone will focus on identifying TB-specific breath biomarkers. Similarly, in partnership with Imperial College London and Oxford University, the company will work on identifying VOCs related to HIV viral loads in blood samples.
These initiatives are part of broader efforts, including the US Department of Defense’s EXHALE project, to develop handheld devices for the non-invasive detection of respiratory diseases before symptoms appear.
Owlstone’s work could dramatically reduce the global burden of these illnesses by enabling early, rapid screening and improving health outcomes in resource-limited settings.
