The investment will launch a spinout company from the Universities of Edinburgh and Bath, named Prothea Technologies Ltd, which is developing technologies to ‘see and treat’ diseased tissue in a single procedure.
The team behind Prothea say that their technology could cut hospital pressures and waiting times and could pave the way for diagnosis and treatment to be carried out in a single hospital visit.
Ultrafast imaging
Currently, patients with suspected early-stage lung cancer undergo screening tests with follow-up scans and biopsies of suspicious tissue. This approach can be slow and can often be inaccurate.
Prothea’s innovations include a fibre optic endoscope that allows biopsies to be taken through a tiny camera tube, and an ultrafast imaging and data capture tool that offers live insights into the molecular make-up of cells. This advance would make it easier to rapidly spot disease and treat in the same procedure.
Decade of research
Lung cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK, with more than 48,000 new cases diagnosed per year. Nine in 10 patients do not survive more than 10 years, with survival rates remaining stubbornly low for the last five decades.
The launch of Prothea comes after 10 years of cross-discipline research on lung disease at the University’s Centre for Inflammation Research, together with key colleagues across the University and partners including Durham, Heriot-Watt and Dundee Universities.
Edinburgh Innovations
Prothea is one of a number of spinout companies launched from the University of Edinburgh in recent years, with support from Edinburgh Innovations, the University’s commercialisation service. A report from London Economics last year found that University of Edinburgh spinouts contributed £162 million to the UK economy in the year 2021/2022.
Financing for Prothea was co-led by Earlybird Venture Capital and Mérieux Equity Partners, with participation from NRW Bank and Old College Capital, the University’s venture investment fund.