Success Stories
ExcellENT Programme PERFORMS
New enterprise initiative guides Loughborough Professor towards international commercialisation of breast cancer diagnosis training scheme
Late last year a meeting of minds from across the industry / academia divide bore first fruit for an initiative to enhance the University’s enterprise activities through direct engagement between researchers and industry entrepreneurs. The ‘ExcellENT Programme’ has been designed and delivered by IPSO Ventures, Loughborough’s IP commercialisation partner. During the Programme’s first phase Alastair Gale, head of Loughborough’s Applied Vision Research Centre, met Pete Magowan, a former director of ARM and an entrepreneur in the microchip and software sectors.
A free-ranging discussion about Alastair’s diverse research interests and where they intersected with Pete’s commercial experience turned serious as Alastair introduced his work in the improvement of breast cancer screening. PERFORMS is an NHS-funded self-assessment and training programme for UK radiologists designed to improve their success rate for early detection of breast cancer. Winner at the University’s Enterprise Awards last October, and endorsed by the Royal College of Radiologists, the PERFORMS team recently signed a £1.2m deal with the NHS to further develop and deliver the scheme over the next four years.
The potential to commercialise PERFORMS internationally was being explored by the team in conjunction with Loughborough’s Enterprise Office, with interest from Germany, Australia, China and the US. How best to achieve this was still in debate when Alastair and Pete sat down to talk. What charged the atmosphere that day, according to IPSO’s Commercialisation Manager Tim Carter who is leading ExcellENT, was the calibre of the science combined with Pete’s keen interest in software and web-based enterprise. Ideas on how to roll-out PERFORMS to international markets flew, as did time, but at the end all were agreed on meeting again in the New Year to take things forward.
Pete Magowan has an exceptional track record in commercialisation of technologies in the microchip, electronic devices and software sectors. From second commercial employee to main board Director he played a key role in growing ARM from a spin-out to a £3bn public company. Frontier Silicon, Amphion Semiconductor, Superscape, PA Semi, Lime Microsystems and Imbera Systems have all received the benefit of his experience and expertise as an active investor, advisor and Director, leading to high growth and successful fundraising and exits.
However, Pete had another ace up his sleeve when it came to PERFORMS – his association with Cambridge-based healthcare entrepreneur Troels Jordanson. Troels, or ‘TJ’ to his friends, is currently Managing Director of BreastHealth UK which offers comprehensive, personalised and private breast screening services through a network of UK clinics. Pete and TJ recently visited Loughborough for a brainstorming session with the entire PERFORMS team along with Julie Taylor from the Enterprise Office and Tim Carter from IPSO. Both TJ and Pete agreed that there was definitely an international business opportunity to be born out of PERFORMS, and started to sketch what that might look like.
These newly formed collaborators and their evolving plans for taking this highly valuable breast healthcare innovation to the global marketplace are what the ExcellENT Programme is all about, and just the first of what should be many similar scenarios playing out across the departments of the University as it progresses. For more on the Programme and IPSO Entrepreneurs, visit www.ipsoventures.com/entrepreneurs or contact Clive Weatherby on 020 7921 2990.