Congratulations to Dr Julie Barnes, CEO of Abcodia, for winning the 2013 prestigious WISE award for Enterprise and Innovation which was presented by HRH The Princess Royal at the Science Museum in London.

The WISE Campaign encourages women working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and has been inspiring females to take up opportunities in these sectors for nearly 30 years. The WISE awards are a unique annual event, a special opportunity to recognise inspiring organisations and individuals actively addressing the core mission of WISE.

Dr Barnes said: “I am delighted to be presented with this award. Leading a company like Abcodia from its start-up to a stage close to being able to launch a product for cancer screening, has been incredibly exciting and rewarding. In just over two-and–a-half years since Abcodia was formed, we have established many international collaborations to advance tests for the early detection of lung, pancreatic, colorectal and breast cancer. We have also formed an alliance with Cancer Research UK to discover new early detection biomarkers for cancer and recently in-licensed ROCA, a well validated test for ovarian cancer screening which we aim to make available to women as soon as we can.

 
“We have a long way to go, but I would like to thank everyone who has helped us get this far, especially our academic founder, Professor Ian Jacobs; our investors, Albion Ventures and UCL Business; our chairman, Dr Andy Richards; our UCL collaborators; as well as my business co-founder, Chris Hodkinson, and other members of Abcodia’s very capable management team.

 
“WISE does a tremendous job at promoting opportunities for women in the STEM sector and I hope that through this award, I can add some support for their mission.”

I have been privileged to work with Abcodia since their company was launched and am thrilled for Julie’s latest success, less than a year after Abcodia scooped a handful of Startup Awards.

The day before the WISE award presentations, Abcodia’s Director of Strategic Alliance, Mike Fisher, unexpectedly had a royal encounter of his own during a visit to the British Library Business and IP Centre (BICP) when he was introduced to the Duke of Edinburgh who was there to learn about its work.

The Duke asked about Abcodia and how the company was founded, and its focus on early diagnosis and screening of cancer. Mike and Prince Philip discussed the importance of the data that the BIPC provides and how the cost of accessing the databases and reports directly is prohibitive to most small companies.