Billy Boyle — founder and CEO of Cambridge-based Owlstone Medical (www.owlstonemedical.com), a diagnostics company developing a breathalyser for disease — has been awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering’s coveted Silver Medal.

This recognises his work in spearheading the development of the company’s breath biopsy platform and driving a vision to save 100,000 lives (and $1.5 billion in health-care costs).

Established in 1994, the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Silver Medal acknowledges outstanding personal contributions to British engineering that have resulted in market success.

Initially developed for military applications, the Owlstone technology is a miniature chemical sensor on a silicon chip, based on a technique called Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectro-metry (FAIMS).

Spun out of Cambridge University in 2004, Owlstone Inc grew into a profitable business, winning defence contracts worth $25 million and providing FAIMS technology for a range of military and industrial applications.

The last year has been transformational for Owlstone Medical, which was ‘spun out’ of Owlstone Inc in March 2016.

With a team of 88 scientists and engineers based on Cambridge Science Park, the company is running breath-based trials for the early detection of lung and colorectal cancer (early detection can dramatically improve survival rates).

Working with clinical and pharmaceutical partners, Mr Boyle has demonstrated the diagnostic power of FAIMS across a range of infectious and inflammatory diseases, as well as different types of cancer.

He said: “Every time you breathe out there are thousands of chemicals on your breath, and some of them are tell-tale markers of disease, which our Breath Biopsy platform is able to detect.

“Our vision is to change the way serious diseases are diagnosed and monitored; we aim to be become the global leader in the non-invasive early detection of cancer, infectious diseases and inflammatory diseases.”