Yahoo Finance Aviva invests £4m in cancer breath tests
The insurance giant Aviva has invested $5m (£4m) into technology that can detect cancers and other diseases with a breath test, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
Aviva Ventures, the east London-based venture capital arm of the FTSE 100 group, is expected to announce an investment in Owlstone Medical as early as this week.
The funding will help finance a 3,000-patient study into lung cancer detection.
Owlstone, which was spun out of Cambridge University’s engineering department in 2004, uses microchip technology to sense biomarkers of disease in a person’s breath.
It is understood the investment fits in with Aviva’s strategy to invest in “protect and prevent” businesses.
Aviva’s medical adviser, Dr Doug Wright, will join the board of Owlstone once the deal is complete.
Ben Luckett, managing director of Aviva Ventures, confirmed the deal, saying that investing in technology that detects potential issues early on was a “win-win” for insurers and their clients, both in health and other areas such as home insurance.
