Fast-growing HealthTech company Bond Digital Health has appointed a new CEO.
Ian Smith is an experienced company director who has held CEO and CFO roles in businesses in various sectors, including health technology, medical technology, biotech and finance.
He was most recently CEO of Time Finance plc, an AIM-listed company offering business finance solutions to SMEs.
Throughout his career Smith, a qualified chartered accountant, has helped businesses commercialise R&D, manage rapid growth, raise development capital, merge, and float on the stock exchange.
He takes over as CEO at Wales-based Bond Digital Health from its co-founder Ian Bond, who is stepping back to a part-time role, acting as an ambassador for the business.
Bond has grown rapidly over the last 18 months as it developed its key product Transform, a data capture and reporting solution for lateral flow diagnostic tests.
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Smith will be tasked with growing the business internationally and preparing it for further investment and in due course a potential public listing.
“Bond Digital Health is an impressive company with exciting prospects,” he said.
“We’ve seen in the pandemic how lateral flow tests have become a valuable and trusted diagnostic tool, but they are analogue and we know there will be huge demand for tests to be enabled with digital data capture and data management in future.
“For Bond, that means there is real opportunity for international growth across various markets and sectors. This is a business whose digital and data-led technology could become essential in diagnostics, not only in human and animal health, but also in growing sectors such as environmental testing and food and drink safety.
“I am very excited to be joining a very talented team in a business with significant potential.”
Outgoing CEO Bond said: “I’m honoured to be handing over the reins to Ian. With his successful track record of transitioning companies from one stage of development to the next, he is the ideal person to lead the business into the next phase of our growth.
“With products already in the market and global demand for our technology growing, the next couple of years will be crucial for the future of Bond Digital Health.
“Ian’s experience, combined with his positivity and ambition are just what the business needs.”
Over the course of 2020, Bond received almost £2 million in equity funding and more than £200,000 in UK and Welsh Government grants, which allowed it to expand its development team.
Bond’s key product Transform is now in-market, adding digital connectivity and data capture to three different lateral flow tests – two antigen tests in the US and Canada and an antibody test in the UK.
In March, the business appointed Wayne Harvey, the Chair of Cardiff Airport, a partner at Gambit Corporate Finance and former Senior Managing Partner for Deloitte in Wales, as its non-executive director and Chair.