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Business & Economy

QuantuMDx CEO to join Prime Minister on overseas trade visit

QuantuMDx CEO Elaine Warburton OBE has been invited by Prime Minister Theresa May to join a small group of delegates representing the best of British business to India on 6-8 November for Theresa May’s first bilateral visit outside Europe since taking office.

Chosen as one of the UK’s fastest growing and most exciting SMEs, QuantuMDx’s CEO Elaine Warburton OBE will represent the company alongside the Prime Minister and a delegation of representatives from UK SMEs and multinational businesses. The Secretary of State for International Trade, Dr Liam Fox, will also join the delegation.

Elaine is CEO and co-founder of QuantuMDx Group. The company, founded in 2008 by Elaine, Jonathan O’Halloran, CSO and Julian Warburton, CFO, is transforming molecular diagnostics with the development of rapid, low cost, and highly accurate leapfrog diagnostic technologies for use in any global healthcare setting but focused at humanitarian health challenges such as multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

QuantuMDx’s flagship device, Q-POC™, is a handheld molecular diagnostic device that will deliver referral standard results, in minutes by the patients’ side. The device, invented by Jonathan O’Halloran, will become a powerful tool in the fight against diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and STIs, as well as providing a solution to the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance. The first commercially available test will be a warfarin sensitivity genotyping test with clinical trials commencing in India next year.

Elaine Warburton OBE says “We are immensely proud that the work we carry out at QuantuMDx has been recognised nationally and internationally and I am thrilled to have been chosen, by the Prime Minister, to represent the best of British business on the world stage.

She continues “Our aim is that Q-POC™ will have global impact, something that can only be achieved with strong international relationships.  India is an exceptionally important country for us, as we believe we hold a low cost, but highly effective, solution to help reduce India’s enormous MDR-TB burden, which accounts for 26% of global TB cases. We already enjoy a modest collaboration with India so strengthening relationships between our two countries will undoubtedly lead to further Anglo-Indian collaborations that could help save millions of lives a year, for both countries, through early diagnosis helping create significant economic and financial savings in the longer-term.”

Speaking ahead of the visit, the Prime Minster said “In the past the focus of trade delegations has been big businesses, but I want to take a new approach that recognises the full range of British business. So this time we will be focussing on small and medium sized businesses – and, importantly, the delegation will include representation from every region of the UK. I want to create an economy that truly works for everyone – and this new approach to international trade missions will help achieve just that.”