UK Inventor has won top European innovation prize

UK inventor Douglas Anderson has won a prestigious European award for a new opthalmoscope laser scanning technology for the eye.

The award in the SME/research category of the The European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Commission organised event was announced in Ljubljana.

In 1992, Douglas' son, then five years old, went blind in one eye when a retinal detachment was detected too late because of inefficient eye exams. Anderson set out to develop a system that yields a complete and detailed wide-scan image of a patient's retina. To date more than 15 million patients have since had access to the non-invasive scanning laser eye exams which help practitioners with the detection and diagnosis of both eye and non-eye diseases, such as eye cancers, diabetes and high blood pressure at an earlier stage.

Minister for Intellectual Property Baroness Morgan said this award clearly demonstrated the importance of intellectual property to UK business.

"Innovation is the key to the UK’s future prosperity. This award recognises a tremendous British invention which has made a real difference to people in their everyday lives, and demonstrates how the patent system can be crucial in delivering commercial success. Douglas Anderson's patented technology has made stressful eye examinations a thing of the past."

Commenting, Mr Anderson, said:

"It was with genuine humility that I accepted this award recognising that it was the efforts of every engineer and designer that made this possible, which would in turn have been for nothing had not all those involved in manufacturing, procurement and quality assurance constructed our device, which again would have made no difference had not our field staff delivered relentlessly and for everyone in administration who kept us focused in the earliest days - this has been a tremendous team effort and accomplishment."

Editor’s note

• For a full list of winners please visit the European Patent Office website.
• After some years of testing within Crombie Anderson, a British product design consultancy, Anderson, together with Robert Henderson, an optical engineer who then worked as an external consultant, and Roger Lucas, patented the first scanning laser ophthalmoscope able to scan a very wide field of the retina. That same year Douglas founded Optos, a spin-off of Crombie Anderson, a company headquartered in Dunfermline, Scotland, that by the time of its initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange in February 2006 had revolutionised the way eye exams are conducted. It raised some $54 million in equity the day it went public.
• For more information about the patent system please visit the UK-IPO website.