ABHI Scotland: Interview with Giles Hamilton from ODx Innovations
Giles, firstly, welcome to ABHI. Why don’t you tell us a little bit your company, ODx Innovations?
ODx started from a simple premise. When a doctor sees a patient, they often take a biological sample to see what is happening to them. There are two important questions they then ask; are there bacteria growing in this sample, and if so, what can we do to inhibit the bacteria?
Typically, a sample will go off to a central lab, then go into processing to be analysed. It’s a tried and tested technique and one that has been used over the world for the past 80 years. The problem is it can take days to get an answer back to the doctor and the patient. So at ODx, we’ve set about doing this process in a much quicker way, enabling us to answer the questions of “what’s growing and what will kill the bug” within an hour, and quite often within 30 minutes at the point of care. As you can well imagine, the time this saves, the benefits to the patient, and the cost-effectiveness to the system, are tremendous.
Starting out with our initial work, we were able to secure grants for the first three years. This enabled us to gather data, and also allowed us to speak to established companies, clinicians and patient groups to really establish our clinical and commercial need. We then set about raising capital, which, when secured allowed us to move very quickly. From one person in early 2019, we’re now up to 35 employees and 70 contractors, and we are in the process of hiring another 60 members of staff and additional contractors. We therefore expect to be at around 150 by the autumn, spearheaded from our headquarters in Inverness.
And what is it about Inverness that makes it a great place for a HealthTech company to do business?
When we were staring out, we did an exercise that looked at a number of locations around the globe that would give our technology the best chance of emerging. The US, Ireland, Switzerland, the Far East…you name it. We looked at employment costs, the situation with real estate, access to talent, all the things you would expect, and Inverness came out on top. It’s a very high skilled area, with a rich tradition of light engineering. On a per head basis, it actually boasts one of the largest HealthTech populations in Europe. There are easily 2,500 people with good skills in this sector, and there are a lot of talented individuals coming out of the nearby RAF Lossiemouth and Kinloss.
Geography plays a massive part. If you are a doctor here, you own the problem because there may not be a senior clinician to pass an issue on to. The next hospital could be 100 miles away, which means the standard of clinical practice is very high, there is real capacity to develop clinical engagement and you are able to gain access to patient populations that can support and get behind a technology.
When you think about Scotland more broadly, what are its assets?
Scotland, and indeed the whole of the UK, represent some terrific assets with its science base, and we feel very much part of the UK family of engineering. Of course, there are cultural variations like everywhere else and communities tend to be smaller here, which means that we can get things done a little quicker and in more joined up way than in some of the larger urban centres.
In places like the Roslin Institute, and the ecosystem that surrounds it, you have the highest concentration of animal science related expertise of anywhere in Europe, and the nation boasts incredible strength in epidemiology, research and in public health.
You can also really make the case for digital technology here, as more remote, rural communities are common. Take the Highlands region and the 93 inhabited Islands that surround it for example. A hospital may be a two or more hours journey away, which means you very quickly can show a socioeconomic benefit from your technology and you’re also more likely to see it used. If you are in one of the UK’s larger cities, it’s tricky to convince people to use a point of care device when they are only five minutes away from a global teaching hospital. Therefore, these particular aspects of the Scottish landscape, and the way the population is dispersed, are now seen as strengths, whereas historically, they were a challenge.
You’re one of ABHI’s newest members – what was it that made you join the Association?
We have a fantastic community of companies across the UK, and science is blind. If it’s a good technology or product, it’s going to make sense wherever it is. We think ABHI has a wonderful tradition of listening to the membership and properly understanding the issues of companies at all stages of the development, right across the UK. It’s quite unusual to get a trade organisation that can speak truth to power effectively through the relationships that they have with government and other industry bodies, and who are also keenly attuned to the issues of emerging companies, as well as established ones. I’ve been particularly impressed by the international outlook, the programmes in the US and elsewhere, which really take a hard look at the difficult questions.
I also like the honesty at ABHI. There is a sense of integrity, with staff who are very passionate. It’s a great place to become a new member as within a week of joining we had an introduction to another company where there are some mutual areas of interest. This has led to a meeting and I think there is some really interesting collaborative work we can do together there.
We are now able to find and engage with the people who are motivated by the same issues as us much more quickly than we would be able to on our own. As we look to the future, we’re keen to make sure that we can support other ABHI members, and the wider community around ABHI, to make connections and to give support and advice where it is useful.
How do you see the work of the ABHI Scotland Group fitting in to ABHI?
We are looking to contribute to a map of stakeholders in Scotland, to sketch out the landscape and pinpoint where the challenges are. In my view, there are some Scottish-specific issue for companies, and being able to articulate this is very important. Some are common, but some are where I feel ABHI and the Scotland Group can really help, especially where there is a connection to global companies. Knowledge transfer is key.
If you analyse technology adoption in the UK, you can have great success though national adoption. I therefore think that if you can do a national programme in Scotland, you can then take that to England. We have a capacity here to really help SMEs to give them a pathway by capturing the necessary data, clinical studies and economic models that are essential for the reimbursement coverage. This can provide a quicker return for companies in economic terms, and critically, what all members of ABHI care about, better outcomes for patients faster.
Giles Hamilton is the Chief Executive Officer of ODx Innovations
The ABHI Scotland Group will next meet on 30th November