8 December 2014, Newcastle | Emerging British medical device developers QuantuMDx received double honours this week as CSO Jonathan O’Halloran was named ‘Pioneer’ by Connected World for his Internet of Life vision, while CEO Elaine Warburton OBE was named a ‘BioBusiness Mover & Shaker’ by BioBeat in a report on women bringing better health to people around the world.
Jonathan and Elaine co-founded QuantuMDx in 2008, driven by their belief that quality diagnostics is an innate human right. The company is developing a connected device named Q-POC™ that will take a sample (such as blood, sputum or tumour) and provide a DNA-based diagnostic result within 15 minutes for a few dollars by the patient’s side.
Both Elaine and Jonathan were commended for their determination, drive and passion. Connected World noted that “Jonathan O’Halloran is lucky in that he uses the words ‘job’ and ‘hobby’ interchangeably. …O’Halloran is also lucky in that…successfully delivering his ‘hobby’ could save millions of lives.” Elaine is driven by years of observing health inequality globally, while nursing on the wards and later running hospitals.
Elaine Warburton OBE said “I am honoured to be included in BioBeat’s list of influential women pushing boundaries and asking more from our healthcare systems. Hopefully this will encourage more women to innovate to deliver solutions to current and future humanitarian health challenges.”
Jonathan O’Halloran said “This (technology) is an incredible achievement and is the culmination of 10 years work and the realisation of a vision that I had whilst ‘playing’ with technology in a lab I built in my garage”.
About QuantuMDx Group:
Launched in 2008 and headquartered at the International Centre for Life in Newcastle, UK with subsidiaries in the USA (Chattanooga, Tennessee) and Asia (A*Star’s Genome Institute of Singapore). QuantuMDx was co-founded by healthcare professional and CEO Elaine Warburton OBE, and inventor and CSO Jonathan O’Halloran both determined to play their role in finding a solution to some of the humanitarian health challenges. The Company has developed a working prototype DNA analyzer, Q-POCTM with a number of assays in the pipeline, including infectious disease detection & drug resistance assays, tumour profiling and companion diagnostics. A big focus for the Company has been on developing front end sample prep solutions for many different sample matrices to enable whole sample to result rapid diagnosis, making Q-POCTM a truly universal handheld diagnostic device. QuantuMDx is the recipient of a number of large grants from The UK’s Innovate (MDR-TB assay), The Biomedical Catalyst Fund (tumour profiler), NHS NIHR’s Invention for Innovation Program (DNA sequencing biosensor) and the European Union (“NanoMal” malaria assay).
Help employers find you! Check out all the jobs and post your resume.
