Tony Blair opens Owlstone Medical's new lab

Diagnostics company Owlstone Medical has welcomed Tony Blair to its headquarters in Cambridge.

The former UK Prime minister officially opened the company’s new high volume clinical laboratory where he was given a tour of Owlstone Medical’s headquarters and other facilities.

During the visit he learned about the company’s Breath Biopsy technology and its aim of saving 100,000 live and $1.5 billion in healthcare costs.

Owlstone Medical states that the new lab enables it to offer high quality and high throughput Biomarker Services to academics, clinicians, pharmaceutical companies and CROs to identify breath biomarkers for disease diagnostics as well as precision medicine applications including therapeutic response, patient stratification and outcome prediction.

Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical said: “Our new high volume clinical lab follows the successful commercial launch of our Biomarker Services earlier this year and the announcement of our first clinical and pharma customers. Having a state-of-the-art and globally unique capability allows us to increase capacity to handle large service projects as well as support our ongoing clinical trials.”

Tony Blair said: “I congratulate Owlstone Medical on the opening of its new clinical lab. It was a pleasure to meet the dedicated staff of this successful, dynamic company, united in their clear vision to save lives. The breath biopsy technology has huge potential to lead to great improvements in healthcare, and I wish the team every success in developing a company that will become a leader in next generation diagnostics.”