Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Annual Meeting

London, 24 Oct 2016

Owlstone Medical’s CEO Billy Boyle gave an invited talk from Cancer Research UK (CRUK) at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Annual Meeting 2016 in London. The Grand Challenges initiative provides financial incentives to the world’s leading scientists to find solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.

The company CEO and co-founder joined Bill Gates and Richard Branson at the event, along with more than 1000 scientists gathered to demonstrate their innovations and to share ideas on a wide range of global health and development topics. Billy spoke about Owlstone Medical’s diagnostic breath analysis technology, which can be used to spot telltale chemical compounds in patient breath, allowing the early diagnosis of disease. He introduced the LuCID (Lung Cancer Indicator Detection) project, the goal of which is to save 100,000 lives and save healthcare providers $1.5 billion by 2020 by increasing the rate of detection of stage I lung cancer.

Bill Gates who also spoke at the event praised Britain for its “extraordinary leadership in science and innovation, which has been good for Britain and good for the world”. The philanthropist also urged the need for more investment “in the science and technology that will cement the UK’s place as a leading global innovation hub”.

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