CEO of QuantuMDx awarded OBE in New Year's Honours list

3 January 2014

QuantuMDx Group’s CEO and Co-Founder Elaine Warburton has been awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list 2014 for her services to health innovation over the last 25 years.

The award is in particular for her work at QuantuMDx in driving innovation in DNA-based diagnostics, which will help address the humanitarian health burdens of infectious diseases and cancer in both developing and developed countries.

Elaine's career has taken her across the globe from laboratories and clinics in Europe, USA, Singapore and Africa, to nursing, to managing hospitals in England and even a stint at KPMG as a chartered accountant reorganizing the NHS and gaining insights into the banking, media, manufacturing and airline industry sectors.

However after becoming frustrated at the length of time it took to adopt new technologies she left secure, well paid jobs and set up three start-ups each addressing major health issues — back pain, early diagnosis of cancer using genetic medicine and novel screening technologies. In 2008 she co-founded QuantuMDx Group which is delivering a handheld laboratory for rapid complex diagnosis of a wide range of diseases within 15 minutes, at the patient’s side.

QuantuMDx has received numerous awards for innovation and is the recipient of a number of large grants from the UK’s Technology Strategy Board (for a TB diagnostic), the Biomedical Catalyst Fund (tumour profiler), NHS NIHR’s Invention for Innovation Program (DNA sequencer) and the European Union (“NanoMal” developing a malaria diagnostic).

Elaine Warburton, who has been awarded an OBE in the New Year's
Honours list 2014, visiting No 10 Downing Street last November
with the QuantuMDx Q-POC point of care diagnostic device .

Elaine said, “Receiving an OBE is such an amazing honour and recognition of one’s efforts is immensely humbling. Since a young age, it has always been my desire to play a role in shaping healthcare so that it delivers the very best technologies and services to anyone irrespective of where they live in the world.

"When my aunt married into Lord William Beveridge’s family, I read his research papers on his vision of ‘equal access to healthcare and justice for all’ that were subsequently to provide the infrastructure for Britain’s National Health Service and Welfare State founded in 1948. This had a profound effect on me and I realised that in order to achieve health equality the rule book had to not only be re-written, re-designed but also future-proofed.

"Whilst I have had my fair share of knocks and scrapes over the years, which have given me greater insights into successfully commercializing technologies, I have always been blessed with highly supportive and loving family and friends and wonderful colleagues, particularly within QuantuMDx, who not only share my vision but are highly inventive, hard working, full of fun and an absolute joy to work with.”