The convergence of consumer tech and clinical trials looks to put Scarborough on the MedTech map

L- R is Dr Andrew Botham and Luke Heron founders of TestCard

Three and a half years ago two friends, one with a background in consumer technology and one with experience in clinical research and development, started a journey that has taken them to Edinburgh and Houston, but remains firmly rooted in Scarborough.

Luke Heron and Dr Andrew Botham are the chief executive and chief scientific officer of TestCard. The pair who became friends through their children admit that the business which has over the last 12 months secured more than £8.5m of funding started as the result of a conversation over a Sunday roast with a few glasses of wine.

However, since 2017 the duo has developed a disruptive response to the traditional clinical pathway of health testing. The original idea focused on removing the awkwardness and increasing the adoption of prostate exams for men, however the firm’s first product is a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) at home kit that transforms your smartphone into a medical grade scanner.

Botham explains, “We hear a lot of founders stories that can be taken with a bit of a pinch of salt or the equivalent to that apple landing on Isaac Newton’s head. But that [story of the roast dinner and wine] is genuinely what happened.

“From there we started talking to people about it more and more, and it became very clear that accessibility to healthcare was even bigger than we thought. We were thinking about it as getting people through the door [of doctors], but actually doing that requires us to tackle isolation. There’s a lot of different types of isolation, they could be geographically isolated and or economically isolated from healthcare and both of these can be real barriers in many parts of the world. Alongside this you have the social isolation challenges because of mental health conditions or frailty and age.”

L-R the TestCard “postcard” which contains the testing kit and the app which turns your phone into a medical grade scanner

So TestCard seeks to battle all of these and those “day to day barriers” which Botham explains are things such as people not wanting to take time off from work or even admitting something might be wrong. The aim he adds is to give them the piece of evidence that they need to act and to be able to do that from the comfort of their own home.

In fact, talking to the founders it’s clear that they view the opportunity to truly disrupt and transform the health sector is key to them. And is the funding available to support this aim?

Heron picks up, “Do we think the money is going to be available, yes we do. Since the £4.5m we raised in October we’ve just raised another £4m in the last two weeks.”

He adds that the price is actually 45% higher than the last fundraising they undertook at the end of 2021 and that it will allow them to push back their Series A funding round, in which he expects to raise between £20-30m.

This valuation does not seem outrageous when you consider the digital health market is valued in excess of £100 billion last year with an annual growth of c.28.5% to 2026. According to one report published by Global Market Insights last year the market is expected to be worth over £450bn with the increasing use of smartphones forming a key driver.

For Botham Covid-19 has led to a shift in views from both the wider populous and also from investors about how healthcare can be delivered.

He explains, “All people could see for a long time were the risks of moving to a new system of healthcare rather than seeing the risks of staying with the established system. What Covid has done is give them a much bigger risk of keeping the existing system and therefore changed that element of decision making. I think that’s why you’ve seen a lot more investment in health, both because it’s highlighted the necessity for it but perhaps more importantly because investors realise the barriers that were in place with healthcare system to adopt these elements are now not there or are significantly diminished, meaning adoption will come more easily.”

As for the future for TestCard, well its first product a UTI at home test which comes in the form of a “postcard” featuring the testing strips for you to use at home with an app to process the results – it’s approved in 27 countries including the USA and although currently only available in the UK it will soon go on sale in Norway France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden.

TestCards base in East Ayton, Scarborough

In fact, the business which maintains its head office and production facilities in Scarborough but also has sites in Edinburgh and in Houston at the Texas Medical Centre – one of the world’s largest medical complexes – expects to be more than doubling its head count by the end of 2020 taking it from 40 to 100 employees.

This growth Heron explains is because of the firm’s existing pipeline of projects which includes developing testing kits for glucose in urine tests which could be an indicator of diabetes and also malaria.

However, with growth both Botham and Heron see an opportunity to help put Scarborough on the Yorkshire map of MedTech locations. Botham who spent many years working in clinical research and development in York explains there isn’t a community of similar businesses in the local area but the partners see it as an opportunity to perhaps spark a new cluster and support the area’s economic growth.

Away from it’s new testing kits, the business is also in talks with a number of NGOs having already had a dialogue with the likes of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to explore ways it can support bringing its technology to developing economies.

The firm is also preparing to be part of a Yorkshire led study funded by the Yorkshire Cancer Research and being run by Professor James Catto at the University of Sheffield looking at screening for bladder cancer in men considered high risk. Botham adds that the opportunity to be part of such a project is “amazing” as the idea for the business started with conversations around cancer so it was always an aim but one he thought was “real long term” and that could be “years and years out” but is now coming to fruition.

It’s clear that the ambition behind this business isn’t solely rooted in commercial gain there is an altruistic quality to the founders who want to ensure they help transform and evolve the healthcare sector to make it more accessible to all. But what’s next? Well a Series A funding round is clearly on the cards later this year as is recruitment but most importantly a discipline.

Heron adds: “There’s stuff that we say no to, and it’s something we say far more often than we says yes. We get half a dozen approaches every week from large companies and small ones but we are focused on doing stuff that fits within our skill set and that we know we can add value on.”

Botham finishes: “The danger for us is in not saying no enough. Like Luke says because our technology is so customisable and it can work with any rapid diagnostic or combination of rapid diagnostics, the amount of times, the conversation will be can you do this test, the answer is well yes we can. So the question we ask ourselves is do we want to or not.

“We think we have a fairly good pipeline, and it’s based on what we consider there to be a real clinical benefit to a home user, and to the healthcare economy and environment generally, that it’s going to make a difference. Yes there’s a commercial opportunity as well, but predominantly, unless we believe that it can actually improve something and it’s going to make a difference, we don’t want to do it.”

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