Octopus invests £1.7m in Michelson Diagnostics' OCT scanner
26 Oct 2010
Octopus Investments has announced an investment of £1.7
million in OCT imaging specialists Michelson Diagnostics to help develop
the company's OCT scanner to market.
CEO Jon Holmes founded Michelson with four colleagues in 2006.
The Company's first product based on its patented multi-beam optical
coherence tomography (OCT) technology, the VivoSight scanner, may
revolutionise the market for the non-invasive diagnosis and
treatment of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC).
The VivoSight scanner has already been awarded the CE Mark and US
FDA regulatory clearance for clinical use in Europe and the USA, and
is now being trialled by leading skin cancer specialists at their
clinics.
The investment from Octopus will help fund the manufacture and
placement of VivoSight scanners with key-opinion-leaders for
clinical and economic validation, and will support the growth of the
sales infrastructure in the UK and USA.
Michelson's VivoSight scanner will, for the first time, enable
clinicians to see under the skin surface in real time, to help them
decide whether to treat a lesion, what treatment to use, and to show
them how far a tumour has spread, so that surgery is required only
once and conserves healthy tissue.
This is expected to make non-melanoma skin cancer treatment more
efficient and cost-effective, and to be better for the patient by
reducing unnecessary surgery.
Professor Dan Siegel, a leading New York skin cancer surgeon and
President-elect of the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD), is
trialling the product at his surgery, and says: “Michelson's
VivoSight OCT system appears to be able to differentiate cutaneous
tumours from normal epithelium and stroma, in real time, and has
great potential in helping pre-operation delineation of tumour
margins, which can be both a time and cost saver in the US Health
System.”
Alliott Cole, of Octopus, commented: “Jon is a very capable,
articulate CEO whose team has built a compelling product with strong
technology and intellectual property. Michelson now faces the
challenges of selling into a global market and we are very excited
to be partnering them as they start this process.”
Jon Holmes, CEO of Michelson Diagnostics, said: “It is a great
pleasure to work with Octopus. The depth of network and business
expertise in growing early stage businesses both within the team and
within the Octopus Venture Partner Group will be invaluable in
helping to power our growth in 2011 and beyond.”
Funds were provided from the Octopus Titan VCT funds, the
Eureka EIS Portfolio Service and the Octopus Venture Partners.