Deep Tech, Real Impact: Building and Scaling a Breath Diagnostics Platform
Join us for a fireside chat between Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO of Owlstone, and Chris Micklem, E-Lab CRA, discussing Billy’s experience spinning out of Cambridge and scaling in the med tech sector.
Speaker Bios:
Billy Boyle is an engineering graduate from the University of Cambridge. He is one of the original co-founders of Owlstone Inc, spun out of Cambridge in 2004 with the goal of developing the applications of field asymmetric ion mobility spectroscopy (FAIMS).
Billy started to focus on the medical applications of FAIMS technology after his wife, Kate, was diagnosed and later died of colon cancer as a result of a late diagnosis. He worked closely with clinical partners who integrated FAIMS technology across a broad spectrum of research studies.
Positive results helped to spin-out, and secure initial funding for, Owlstone Medical. With ongoing clinical and commercial success, Billy led this process and became the founding CEO upon the close of a $7M investment in March 2016. The mission of Owlstone Medical is to save 100,000 lives and $1.5B in healthcare costs.
Owlstone Medical has developed Breath Biopsy with the goal of creating non-invasive breath tests to support early detection and precision medicine of diseases including cancer, asthma, COPD and liver disease. Our Breath Biopsy Research Products and Services are available to academic, clinical and pharma research partners who want to develop breath based diagnostics for their own applications. We work with leading academic institutions and industry leaders such as Cleveland Clinic, Astra Zeneca, J&J and GSK with over 100 published papers and posters using Owlstone’s technology. As of 2023, the company has secured over $150M of investment.
Billy received The Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal and was a winner of the 2018 MacRobert Award; he was then made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2020 and an MBE in 2021. He was elected an Industrial Fellow at Trinity Hall Cambridge and Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at King’s College Cambridge in 2022.
Billy sits on the CRUK Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee and was previously a judge for the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Pioneer award and a trustee of the Linacre Institute. He likes to combine a love of running with raising money for charities such as CRUK.
Chris is a postdoctoral researcher in systems & synthetic biology (SynBio) at the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University, where he also undertook his PhD. His work focuses on engineering novel approaches to controlling biological systems – exploring their industrial translation and transformative potential for sustainable biotech applications.
Beyond his research, Chris actively advances SynBio and entrepreneurship initiatives in Cambridge and further afield. To this end, he has served as President of the Cambridge University SynBio Society; on the Steering Committees of the EngBio IRC, SynBioUK and iGEM Startups; and on the Executive Team of Nucleate UK.
WHEN: Thursday, 5 Feb 2026
5.30 PM – 6.30 PM: Fireside discussion in Provost’s Drawing Room
6.30 PM – 7.00 PM: Drinks reception and networking in King’s Bar
WHERE: King’s College, Cambridge
TICKETS: Register here.