The Company and Our Investment

Michelson Diagnostics is a medical equipment and scanner specialists, whose unique laser scanning technology can image skin and other surface tissue at a much higher resolution than ever before.

CEO Jon Holmes founded Michelson with four colleagues in 2006. The Company's first product based on its patented technology, the VivoSight scanner, may revolutionise the market for the non-invasive diagnosis and treatment of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC). The VivoSight scanner has already won CE & Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory clearance for clinical use in Europe and the USA, and is now being trialled by leading skin cancer specialists at their clinics.

Michelson's VivoSight scanner will, for the first time, enable clinicians to ‘see' under the skin surface in real time, to help them decide whether to treat a lesion, what treatment to use, and to show them how far a tumour has spread, so that surgery is required only once and conserves healthy tissue. This is expected to make non-melanoma skin cancer treatment more efficient and costeffective, and to be better for the patient by reducing unnecessary surgery.

The investment from Octopus will help fund the manufacture and placement of VivoSight scanners with key-opinion-leaders for clinical and economic validation, and will support the growth of the sales infrastructure in the UK and USA.

"It is a great pleasure to work with Octopus. The depth of network and business expertise in growing early stage businesses both within the team and within the Octopus Venture Partner Group will be invaluable in helping to power our growth in 2011 and beyond."

Jon Holmes, CEO, Michelson Diagnostics