Published: October 8, 2025 at 9:07 am
Owlstone Medical has secured an award of up to £39.3m million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to support the development of next-generation breath and urine-based cancer diagnostics.
The Cambridge-based company, behind the ‘Breath Biopsy’ platform which aims to diagnose disease, will lead the POSEIDON (Platform Optimizing SynBio for Early Intervention and Detection in Oncology) programme.
The initiative aims to create synthetic-sensor-based Multi-Cancer Early Detection (MCED) tests capable of identifying more than 30 solid tumours at Stage I using only breath and urine samples.
The goal is for these non-invasive tests to be available for at-home use and sold over the counter.
The MedTech’s project is looking to deliver low-cost, accurate cancer screening to adults across the US and will be run in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Qurin B.V. and Planned Systems International.