Zilico Ltd announces Further Investment and the Appointment of a new Chair of the Board of Directors

Early cancer diagnostic specialist, Zilico Ltd, has today announced further investment from existing investor, Deepbridge Capital and the appointment of Martin Frost CBE as its new Chairman.

Martin Frost joins Zilico as Non-Executive Chair of the Board after stepping down as CEO of CMR Surgical, a surgical robotics company he co-founded and led to successful commercial launch in the UK, mainland Europe and India. In order to launch and scale CMR Surgical, Cambridge’s most recent unicorn, Martin, as CEO, raised more than £200m, a record for a European private medical device company.

Commenting on the announcements, Zilico Chief Executive, Sameer Kothari said, Zilico’s CEO Sameer Kothari, said of the appointment:

“I am delighted and look forward to working with Martin. We both share the passion for growing businesses which make a difference in people’s lives. These are exciting times as we forge our plans for Zilico”

Martin succeeds Andrew Newell as Chair. 

 “On behalf of the Board and all my colleagues, I would like to express my thanks to Andrew for his leadership, commitment and hard work over the last 12 years. My gratitude also extends to Dr Alan Folwell, Jerry Mobbs and Dr Tony Miao for their valuable contributions to the company as they step down from the board.”

Speaking about joining Zilico, Martin said:

“I’m really looking forwards to working with Sameer, the Zilico team and investors to help drive important and needed change in the cervical cancer and other clinical areas.”

The new board structure for Zilico sees Dr Savvas Neophytou, a partner of life science investment company, Deepbridge Capital LLP and founding shareholder of a number of technology companies including Torafugu Tech and Cerneretec, continue in his non-executive role at Zilico.

Zilico has developed its proprietary platform technology, Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS), for cancer diagnosis and is expanding its product development from cervical cancer diagnostics into other, additional clinical areas.

ENDS

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Zilico Limited
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+44 (0)161 826 7840

Editor Notes

About Zilico Ltd

Zilico was founded in 2006 following a successful collaboration between the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, UK, to develop a more accurate means of diagnosis for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN).

First to market, ZedScan™ is a portable, handheld device that can measure and detect tissue changes in women identified with an abnormal cervical screening (smear) test. The system utilises EIS technology to detect the development of pre-cancerous abnormalities of the cervix, known as cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN).

ZedScan offers real-time and more accurate detection of pre-cancerous and cancerous cells than standard colposcopy (a procedure for examining the cervix), enabling clinicians to make better informed decisions at a patient’s first visit leading to improved patient outcomes.

A £1m funding award in 2020 by SBRI Healthcare, an NHS England & NHS Improvement initiative, is enabling the company to further develop its oral diagnostic device concept for improved identification of oral cancers.

About Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer is the fourth most prevalent in women globally. Almost all cases of the disease (99%) are caused by the persistent high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, which triggers changes in the cervical cells.

Globally, an estimated 570,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year with around 311,000 annually losing their lives to the disease.