Why America has asked Owlstone to breathe new life into fight against cancer

Almost 40 per cent of Americans will develop cancer in their lifetimes and the disease is the second leading cause of death in the United States. Planet-wide the figures are also alarming - one in five according to the World Health Organisation.

Just one UK company – Owlstone Medical in Cambridge – stands among a phalanx of American healthcare giants detailed to find solutions in a fresh US initiative. And fast.

Eleven years after Owlstone founder Billy Boyle's wife died of the disease because of late diagnosis, the business has grown to become the world number one practitioner of breath biopsy. Bringing the solution to bear against such odds as currently exist has evolved into far more than a personal crusade, Boyle told me.

As previously reported, the Science Park company has been awarded $49.1 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) for the Platform Optimizing SynBio for Early Intervention and Detection in Oncology (POSEIDON) program. For Boyle and his Owlstone team this goes way beyond the financial consideration.

POSEIDON aims to develop first-in-class synthetic-sensor based Multi-Cancer-Early Detection (MCED) tests for Stage I detection of 30+ solid tumours using only breath and urine samples that can be performed in the home and are available over the counter.

Owlstone’s particular project has enrolled some heavyweight partners - the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Qurin B.V., and Planned Systems International Inc - who together aim to find a solution by delivering accurate, low-cost cancer screening for 30+ solid tumours to Americans aged 18 and older.

Boyle tells me that straightforward breath biopsy alone is not a solution and stresses the importance of Owlstone's precision-designed probes branded EVOC® (pronounced evoke) in the process. He says: “Access to an accurate and low-cost MCED test that does not require a doctor’s visit or laboratory testing is key to preventing late-stage diagnoses.

“This award validates both breath as a diagnostic approach and Owlstone’s EVOC® probes as a reporter technology to overcome the shortcomings and challenges that have held back early cancer detection previously. We are grateful to ARPA-H for the opportunity to bring transformative MCED testing to every American within the next decade.”

Boyle adds that earlier testing and diagnosis alone are not the key to identifying and endeavouring to cure cancer. Owlstone's probes are a vital component of its biopsy approach: They cannot be cheated and provide comprehensive targeted assessment of precise biological pathways via dynamic breath analysis.

Previously backed financially by the William and Melinda Gates Foundation, Owlstone's prowess in the sector is well documented and respected on the US side of the Atlantic where the number of new cancer diagnoses in 2025 is estimated to be more than two million, with over 618,000 cancer deaths. That's equivalent to almost 1,700 deaths every day.

While the human toll is the most distressing, there is also a financial cost. The patient-related economic burden of cancer in 2019 was more than $21 billion in the U., of which treatment costs are by far the largest component. Critically, costs associated with late-stage diagnoses are much higher than early-stage, however cancer is difficult to detect early when it is most curable.

Drastically reducing late-stage diagnoses by detecting cancer at Stage I would not only increase treatment effectiveness, but also significantly reduce cancer care costs, restoring up to $2.3 trillion to the US economy.

Currently available screening technologies are unable to address this need due to performance limitations, and many Americans are too remote to access clinic and hospital-based screening programs. While emerging technologies such as liquid biopsy hold great promise for later stage cancer detection and to help guide therapy selection, performance in early-stage cancer detection has been insufficient.

POSEIDON involves the inhalation of a mix of pan-cancer and tumour-specific synthetic sensors from a single-use inhaler, which then circulate throughout the body and accumulate on the surface of cancer cells. The reporters produced by the sensors are either DNA-based which act as a readable barcode, or a set of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), supporting the detection of 36 cancers in total.

These will be collected at-home or in clinic in urine samples and from breath respectively using portable collection and analysis devices. Results will be uploadable real-time to electronic health records (EHR) for rapid review by healthcare professionals, integrating seamlessly into clinical practice and digitally enabled care.

This unique approach offers significant advantages over competing technologies. These include boosting the signal to enhance test performance such that cancer is reliably detectable from early stage, enabling simple and non-invasive sample collection at home, rapid result generation and EHR integration, and a low-cost manufacturing model such that economics are not a barrier to adoption of the technology as the new standard of care for early cancer detection.

Boyle adds: “The POSEIDON project has assembled something of a dream team to fight this problem of cancer detection. The scale of the problem is huge and the loss of life potentially devastating. I am very excited to be working with so many great universities and companies and hopefully form part of the solution here.

“We don't have to change the size and scope of our 150-strong team in the bid to find a lasting solution to the problem. While cancer is the North Star, there are other healthcare problems that our solution is designed to help fix.

“When my wife, Kate was sick we came to realise the scale of the problem and her death emphasised that we needed to pick up the disease a lot sooner in people's lives. We realised that it was a hard thing to achieve but that we must certainly aim for a solution. POSEIDON is a huge collective effort designed to do exactly that and we are committed to doing everything in our power to make it a success.”

The onset of the COVID outbreak put a temporary halt to Owlstone's physical expansion in the States where it was growing fast in North Carolina but the company has maintained a foothold through a number of targeted initiatives. Pardoning the pun, POSEIDON promises a new wave.