Cambridge-based Owlstone Medical lands £36.5m from ARPA-H
At a glance
This article covers an ARPA-H award on 7 October 2025 to Owlstone Medical, a Cambridge-based healthtech developing at-home breath- and urine-based multi-cancer early-detection tests, founded by Billy Boyle. The award totals £36.45m, led by ARPA-H with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a key partner.
What does Owlstone Medical do?
A home test kit that uses inhaled synthetic sensors and portable devices to collect breath and urine samples for analysis. It is designed to detect early-stage solid tumours by identifying molecular reporters in those samples.
Why is Owlstone Medical useful?
Problem
Current screenings miss many early-stage tumours. Late diagnoses reduce survival chances and increase treatment costs while many people cannot access clinic-based screening.
Solution
Owlstone Medical explains that it delivers an inhaled synthetic sensor and VOC/DNA reporter system for home breath and urine tests. This enables low-cost, rapid Stage I detection of over 30 solid tumours with results uploadable to electronic health records.
How much did Owlstone Medical raise?
Owlstone Medical won an award of up to £36.5m ($49.1m) from ARPA-H. This makes it the 4th largest funding round in October 2025 (21 recorded). As of 7 October 2025, the round is the 60th largest of the year (493 total) in the Startupmag database.
For details on how Startupmag compiles its rankings, view our Methodology.
Who invested in Owlstone Medical?
Key players in the award and programme are listed below.
- ARPA-H: A United States government agency that provides funding for high-risk, high-reward biomedical research and development, supporting programmes to accelerate health breakthroughs and the development of diagnostic technologies.
In the funding announcement, Ross Uhrich from ARPA-H said:
The field of cancer screening needs a revolution, and POSEIDON stands ready to deliver. The program allows for a better future by creating broadly accessible, at-home tests that will accurately detect 30+ cancers as early as Stage I, when tumors are still small and the chances of survival are high.
The investor added the programme brings together experts in synthetic biology, oncology, medical devices, cancer data and commercialisation to develop at-home test kits, and that it aims to enable people to test before symptoms appear while maintaining rigorous performance metrics and a translational focus to support safe deployment.
If you're researching potential backers in this space:
- Explore our list of healthtech venture capital firms in the UK
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Who founded Owlstone Medical?
Billy Boyle is the founder of Owlstone Medical.
In the funding announcement, Billy Boyle explained:
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.
The company continued the funding will allow it to bring MCED testing to every American within the next decade.
Where is Owlstone Medical based?
Owlstone Medical is based in Cambridge, UK.
What sector is Owlstone Medical in?
Owlstone Medical operates in the Healthtech sector. The sector develops technologies to improve diagnosis, monitoring and treatment in healthcare. This means using devices and software to help detect and manage illnesses earlier.
Key trends and challenges in Healthtech:
At-home, non-invasive diagnostics
More tests are moving out of clinics to at-home, non-invasive formats, for example breath and urine kits.
Early-stage detection performance
Detecting cancers at Stage I remains difficult; existing tests often miss small tumours, as seen with some blood tests.
Digital integration and regulatory hurdles
Linking at-home test results to electronic health records speeds review, but raises privacy and regulatory approval challenges.
For a deeper look at innovation in this space, see the healthtech startups in the UK.
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