Tom Breeze recently joined Vatic as Head of Commercial after five years at British HealthTech Unicorn Babylon Health. During his time at Babylon, Tom held various positions, including Chief of Staff, Commercial Director, and International Launch Director as Babylon grew from a small business to listing on the NYSE as the care provider to tens of millions of patients worldwide. He joins Vatic with a particular focus on long-term, strategic partnerships.

Why did you want to join Vatic Health?

Where to start? Vatic is a fantastic business at an incredibly exciting stage in its journey. The biotechnology Vatic has developed is world-class and, I believe, completely revolutionary. I have spent the last decade looking at ways to make healthcare more accessible and affordable, and Vatic’s technology does just that: real-time, at-home, lab-quality diagnostics that help identify health issues before they become expensive and, ultimately, potentially lethal. To start that journey working on a product targeting one of the greatest health emergencies of the last 100 years - Covid-19 - and to do so in a warm, high-energy, fun-loving team environment is a dream come true.

How have your first few weeks been?/Key highlights

Busy! When you have an exciting, emerging technology like Vatic, you have a responsibility to get that into the market as safely and efficiently as possible. When customers see a test on a pharmacy shelf or online, they don’t see the complexity of supply chain and distribution agreements you need to get that test where it needs to be. All of that takes time and energy to set-up - but helping to put a tangible, potentially life-saving product in someone’s hands is its own reward.

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If I had to pick a single highlight though, it would be getting to go behind the scenes at Vatic labs in Oxford and learn more about the technology that makes our tests work. Our labs are just round the corner from where the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was developed, and the whole area is buzzing with the atmosphere that surrounds these big scientific advances. It’s really energising to be part of that.

What are your key goals at Vatic?/What are you most excited about achieving with your time at Vatic?

This is straightforward. To help Vatic grow and deliver on our mission of reducing test-to-treatment to hours, rather than days, we need to build partnerships with a network of R&D collaborators, retailers and distributors. If we can be delivering millions of Covid tests per month in the next few months, with millions of our second- and third-generation tests per month in 2023, then I’ll be a happy man.

Why should others consider a career at Vatic?

It’s very rare to find a job that ticks all of the boxes: great mission; rapid growth (because great growth means great career opportunities); fun working culture (I’ve laughed a lot in my first two weeks); and flexible working conditions (outside of the lab, we work on a remote-first model). We’re always looking for great people, so if you’re interested, please get in touch.

Interested in working at Vatic? Take a look at our open vacancies here.