Optellum

Optellum is an Oxford-based medtech company that has developed the world's first and only AI decision-support platform for the diagnosis and treatment of early-stage lung cancer, cleared by the FDA in the US, CE-MDR certified in the EU, and UKCA-approved in the UK. Founded in 2016 as a spinout from the University of Oxford's Computer Vision Laboratory by a team of computer scientists including Professor Sir Mike Brady, Václav Potěšil, Lyndsey Pickup, Timor Kadir, and Jérôme Declerck, the company was built on more than a decade of academic research into AI-assisted radiological analysis.

Optellum's flagship product, the Virtual Nodule Clinic, automatically identifies patients with suspicious lung nodules across health systems, calculates a clinically validated Lung Cancer Prediction (LCP) score using imaging AI, and provides physicians with guidance on whether to escalate or monitor — enabling earlier intervention and reducing unnecessary invasive procedures. Lung cancer accounts for over 21% of all cancer deaths in the UK annually, and the five-year survival rate rises from around 5% when diagnosed at a late stage to nearly 90% when caught early. The platform is now deployed at leading healthcare systems across the US and UK, and Optellum has secured strategic partnerships with GE Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson's Lung Cancer Initiative, and Intuitive Surgical.

In September 2022, Optellum raised $14 million in a Series A led by Mercia Asset Management, with co-investment from Intuitive Ventures and Black Opal Ventures, and participation from IQ Capital and St John's College, Oxford. The company is headquartered at the Oxford Centre for Innovation and has a US office at the Texas Medical Center in Houston.