Bristol Med-Tech Start-Up Siloton Awarded £8.4 Million Contract to Bring Quantum Eye Technology Closer to NHS Patients

Siloton, building the world’s smallest optics for the world’s largest health problems, led by Alasdair Price and the team, has been awarded a major contract to accelerate the development of its groundbreaking handheld eye imaging system, which makes the detection and monitoring of retinal diseases more accessible to patients.

Siloton, a med-tech start-up, has secured £8.4 million from Innovate UK to accelerate the development and clinical trials of its GiraffeOCT optical coherence tomography devices for in-clinic and at-home use.

The two-year contract will support clinical trials with Sunderland Specialist Eye Hospital, expand patient access across North East England, and help assess potential NHS cost savings. The funding could shorten development timelines by up to two years.

Siloton expects to grow its team to 16 by August 2028, hiring across photonics, electronics, software, product development, and manufacturing. The company also plans to raise further investment to strengthen its financial position and advance its second-generation CheetahOCT device, designed to detect a broader range of retinal conditions.

Alasdair Price, CEO of Siloton, said: “Winning this Innovate UK contract allows us to accelerate the development of our systems, explore manufacturing and assembly in the UK, and help a groundbreaking new technology be adopted by the NHS more quickly. Many early-stage companies struggle to get beyond the well-known ‘valley of death’ in developing new products – particularly in healthcare – but this will support us through that crucial phase, bringing the Siloton system closer to being in patients’ hands and building a technology that can be used worldwide.”

Conventional OCT systems are bulky, expensive, and largely confined to hospitals and clinics, limiting access to retinal diagnosis and monitoring. With nearly 623,000 people awaiting NHS ophthalmology appointments in England as of July 2026, accessible alternatives are increasingly important.

Siloton’s GiraffeOCT aims to address this challenge with a compact, binocular-style device that brings OCT technology onto a chip smaller than a £1 coin, enabling more affordable in-clinic and at-home eye care. The innovation aligns with the UK Government’s ambition to expand community-based healthcare and advance quantum sensing solutions across the NHS by 2030.

Alasdair Price, CEO of Siloton, added: “Developing the in‑clinic and at‑home versions of the system will help the government meet its ambitions of moving care into the community and bringing quantum technologies into the NHS. The contract will also allow us to expand our technology to cover a wider range of diseases, integrate our second‑generation BlueJay chip – the same architecture used in our system for astronauts – and build out the cloud platform that underpins the service.

“The NHS needs new technologies and new ways of working, and it needs them quickly. This contract is a first step toward streamlining the process and ensuring patients in the UK get access to the same innovations as other countries, as soon as they are deployed rather than years after approval.”