From vision to validated market: QuantarMed finds its commercial footing

QuantarMed, a London based startup, is reimagining chronic disease detection. The company’s flagship product, QDx, is built on a hybrid of artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum-inspired modelling, aimed at catching metabolic changes long before being flagged by standard clinical tools. For a technology this novel however, the science was never the limiting factor. The commercial path was, so the company needed business growth support from Digital Catapult’s Innovation Services team to understand the competitive landscape and identify market opportunities. 

The company’s solution stands at the forefront of innovation in the healthcare sector, where earlier detection could significantly improve patient outcomes and reduce pressure on healthcare services. The current pilot is testing the solution across asthma, Type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease, which represent some of the most widespread and costly long-term conditions facing modern health systems. 

The startup’s ambition is significant, but as is the complexity of the market the team is entering. The sector is known for stringent regulation which exacerbates the barriers to entry for startups, as well as difficulty accessing patient data and deploying the solution in a real-world environment. 

QuantarMed sits at a genuinely unusual intersection: healthcare, quantum physics and artificial intelligence. The founding team’s goal is to make predictive diagnostics accessible well beyond traditional clinical settings, including through satellite-linked mobile applications in remote and underserved regions.

Digital health is a crowded market, and that creates a specific problem for companies with genuinely novel technology, as it’s not always clear where to begin. QuantarMed needed to work out which customers to target first, consider how to explain what QDx does in terms that would resonate outside of a research context, and explore how to position the solution against the diagnostic tools already on the market.

Without that clarity, commercialising the solution carried real risk. The wrong initial market, or a poorly evidenced value proposition, could undermine both traction and investor confidence at a critical stage.

The team also recognised that evidenced market research would be essential beyond commercialisation itself – as proof of demand for future funding conversations and strategic partnerships.

The research surfaced insights that shaped QuantarMed’s thinking on product design as much as the startup’s market strategy. Trust, transparency and explainability emerged as non-negotiable design requirements, particularly for the Gen Z and Millennial users who were identified as the most likely early adopters. The team also developed a detailed picture of how target users approach personalisation and data sharing, and what drives the decision to download or purchase a health application.

On market entry, the recommendation was specific: Glasgow as the strongest initial target, based on evidence of receptiveness to novel health technologies and a supportive ecosystem. The research didn’t stop there – one of the analysts proactively identified relevant sector events and programmes, including a quantum-in-healthcare conference at the University of Dundee. QuantarMed attended and left with new networks and a subsequent invitation from the university itself, which was critical in enabling the startup to connect with prospective partners and collaborators.

The engagement gave QuantarMed what it had set out to find: a clear, evidenced commercial direction at a stage when the cost of getting that wrong would have been high.

The market entry recommendation pointed the team toward a specific geography with a clear rationale behind it – a grounded case for where QDx was most likely to find early traction. The research on user behaviour and trust gave the product team concrete inputs for design decisions that will shape how the technology is received.

The Dundee connection proved to be an unexpected dividend. What began as a conference recommendation became an invitation from the university and an opening into Scotland’s academic health tech community, networks that QuantarMed hadn’t previously engaged with.

The engagement also ran in parallel with separate Innovate UK support focused on technology validation. The combination of commercial and technical evidence, developed through different programmes simultaneously, had something of a snowballing effect.

Perhaps most importantly for a company at this stage, the work produced something that goes beyond a go-to-market plan. Evidenced market research and demonstrated customer appetite are assets in their own right when approaching investors and partners. This qualified insight gave the team the evidence necessary to prove appetite for the solution, and the initial steps in the company’s growth journey that would enable it to scale successfully.

The collaborative working style stood out as much as the outputs. QuantarMed’s founder noted that both analysts were consistently engaged with the client’s perspective – asking for input, sharing direction in real time, and treating the engagement as a two-way process rather than a commission.

When asked whether anything could have been done differently, the answer was a straightforward ‘no’. Every piece of research delivered, and every recommendation made, carried value for the business.

For QuantarMed, what began as a search for commercial clarity has become a foundation for the next stage of growth with a target market identified, a network expanded, and the evidence base to back both.