Edinburgh Molecular Imaging make Pitch@Palace final

AN Edinburgh biotechnology start-up have made it to the London-based final of an entrepreneurial competition.

A scientist from Edinburgh Molecular Imaging.

Edinnburgh Molecular Imaging is hoping for success at Pitch@Palace; a London-based competition which promises the winner contact with CEOs and industry experts to forward their business ideas.


The organisation aims to quickly commercialise in-vivo optical imaging agents, which can cut the diagnosis times for cancers, inflammatory diseases and fibrosis by days.

EM Imaging was founded in 2014 by Dr Kev Dhaliwal and professors Mark Bradley and Christopher Haslell from the University of Edinburgh’s college of ­medicine.

Company CEO Ian Wilson explains: “If you imagine our drug as a lightbulb, it moves around the body and is able to light up areas of disease allowing for improved detection and diagnosis of diseases like cancer.”

The three men devised a scientific process which “marks” specific diseases within the body, allowing them to be picked up by scanners and other imaging equipment to be treated.

EM Imaging’s progression to the Pitch@Palace final, founded by the Duke of York Prince Andrew, puts them in contention for the title, having beaten 40 other entrepreneurs to this point.

Ian added: “Winning would show [that] senior industrial figures have validated what we are doing and have appreciated the value of our technology.

“It would hopefully help us to raise capital so we can continue to grow.”

The team has decades of experience in medicinal chemistry, biochemistry and cell biology, and aims to improve mortality rates for diseases where mortality rates have not improved in the last 50 years.

Jamie Coleman the Founder and managing director of the Capital’s tech hub, Codebase, is one of this year’s judges for the competition. The successful businessman is on the board of Edinburgh International Festival and has collaborated with start-ups such as Reloaded Games, Rightscale and FanDuel throughout his career.

Fellow Scottish company BioGelx are also in contention for this year’s prize.

To vote for Edinburgh Molecular Imaging or other Scottish entry BioGelx, register your choice on the Pitch@Palace website.

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