UK medical technology start-up Siloton has secured an £8.4 million contract from Innovate UK to accelerate its portable eye imaging system, with the company's CEO claiming the deal cuts one to two years from time to market.

The money, spread over two years, funds two parallel tracks: the in-clinic GiraffeOCT device and an at-home version with built-in automation and guidance so users can image their own retinas without a technician.

Why miniaturising OCT matters for R&D portfolios

Optical coherence tomography is the clinical gold standard for diagnosing retinal disease. The catch has always been hardware. Conventional OCT systems are large, expensive and confined to hospitals and optometry clinics. Siloton's approach uses photonic chip technology to compress the bulky optical components onto a single coin-sized chip, packaged in a handheld, binocular-style unit.

For R&D managers watching diagnostic platforms, that is the key spec. A chip-based OCT shifts the cost and form-factor equation enough to open point-of-care and home monitoring markets that desktop systems cannot reach.

"The contract will reduce the time to market for the medical device by one to two years," said Alasdair Price, Siloton's CEO. "It will also allow us to grow the company, bringing in new skills around manufacturing and regulation, both of which are critical to the next stage of the business."

What's the clinical evidence so far?

The measured track record is short but notable. In 2024, Siloton became the first commercial organisation to demonstrate sub-surface imaging of a human retina, using its first-generation Akepa OCT photonic chip. The following year it trialled the device with patients for the first time, imaging retinas to identify the presence and progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). A second patient cohort was imaged earlier this year.

Sample sizes and full performance data from those cohorts were not disclosed in the announcement, so the claims remain those of a vendor mid-development rather than peer-reviewed results. There is one independent data point, though: the Project Ginan consortium in Australia has bought a GiraffeOCT research system and evaluated its retinal imaging performance with a group of healthy volunteers.

Under the Innovate UK contract, Siloton will run clinical trials of the in-clinic device with Sunderland Specialist Eye Hospital, giving patients access to the technology during development rather than after it.

"These trials will be based around the prototype for the full medical device, providing additional post-processing and improved ergonomics compared to our research-use only product line," Price explained.

What comes next in the product line?

The funding also supports development and internal testing of a second-generation research device, CheetahOCT, which will measure different layers of the retina and expand the range of detectable conditions. It is scheduled for availability from early 2027.

CheetahOCT runs on the company's second-generation BlueJay chip — the same architecture Siloton is using for a system it is building to give astronauts eye tests on long-term missions.

"The image performance will be significantly improved, increasing the number of biomarkers that it can be used to measure. This means you will be able see more of the eye and in finer detail," Price told Physics World. "CheetahOCT will also be much more compact, as we continue to miniaturize other parts of the system that fall outside the photonic chip."

Siloton's credentials include a business innovation award from the Institute of Physics in 2023.

The budget picture

An £8.4m injection against a two-year timeline is significant for a company at Siloton's stage, and it is public money — Innovate UK, the UK's innovation agency, is the sole named funder. The contract buys manufacturing and regulatory capability alongside the engineering itself, which suggests the company is positioning for the certification runway a home-use medical device will require. Whether the at-home version clears usability and regulatory hurdles at scale remains the open question; the Sunderland trials over the next two years should provide the first structured evidence.