Medical device company ODx scooped a prestigious award at Scotland’s Life Science Awards.
At a virtual ceremony celebrating outstanding achievement in the sector, ODx CEO Giles Hamilton won the Rising Stars: Extraordinary Talent award and was runner up in the Business Leadership category.
The Inverness-based medical technology specialists are developing a point of care test that helps detect the ability of urinary tract infections (UTIs) to resist antibiotics.
It will aid patients by getting faster diagnosis and treatment, and will also save NHS costs on hospital admissions, lab time and reducing antibiotic prescriptions.
Giles Hamilton, CEO for ODx, said: “I’m delighted the work of the ODx team & its partners has been recognised. Over 150 million people around the world suffer from UTIs each year and they can lead to potentially fatal urosepsis.”
“We hope that ODx technology can have a global impact, and that sufferers, young and old, can get better and more efficient treatment.”
In 2019, ODx opened a centre for scientific excellence in Solasta House on Inverness Campus to boost its research & product development capabilities. The state-of-the-art facility has since created around 70 highly skilled jobs and ODx plans to expand further.
Hamilton added: “We are looking forward to working more closely with the NHS and communities in across Scotland & overseas to help UTI sufferers, their relatives and health care professionals.”
“Scotland’s world-class life sciences sector contributes more than £3 billion a year to the economy and is globally recognised for innovation and impact.”
Scotland’s Life Science Awards recognise innovation and leadership in the sector. Leaders gathered online for the virtual evening on Wednesday 24th March and reflected on the legacy that 2020 and the global pandemic has left on the Life Sciences Industry in Scotland and the lessons that have been learned.
Testing for UTIs is typically carried out in hospital laboratories and it can take two to three days to get results back to GPs and patients. ODx can reduce the time for test results down to under an hour.
The ODx technology will be a rapid, cost effective point of care testing solution for use by GPs as well as hospital emergency departments and specialist clinics around the world.
