Why OPD has joined BIVDA – strengthening diagnostics innovation through evidence

Diagnostics sit at the heart of modern healthcare, informing the majority of clinical decisions while representing only a small fraction of total healthcare spend. For Oxford Product Design (OPD), joining the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association (BIVDA) is a natural step in deepening our engagement with the UK diagnostics ecosystem and supporting innovation where it matters most.

At OPD, we work with diagnostics companies at all stages, from early-stage innovators developing novel assays, development rigs, instruments and near-patient testing solutions, through to established organisations scaling platforms for clinical and commercial impact. Many of our existing clients and collaborators are already BIVDA members, and joining the association strengthens a network we are actively working within every day.

A strong alignment with BIVDA’s mission

BIVDA’s focus on enabling innovation, maintaining high standards, and ensuring diagnostics play a central role in healthcare aligns closely with OPD’s own purpose. Our role is not only to design diagnostic devices, but to help innovators generate the evidence needed to make new technologies believable to regulators, healthcare providers, commissioners and investors.

A key differentiator for OPD is our integrated bioscience capability, including in-house CL2 laboratories that allow assay development, biological testing, assay interaction studies and early feasibility work to be carried out alongside physical consumable and device development. This integration enables evidence to be created early, iteratively and in parallel with hardware and system design, reducing technical risk and accelerating decision-making.

We see this in-house ability to combine bioscience, diagnostics engineering, microfluidics, optics, electronics human factors, and verification thinking as central to overcoming many of the adoption challenges faced by diagnostics innovators, while de-risking and accelerating development at the earliest riskiest stages of innovation through the results we achieve.

Supporting evidence-led diagnostics development

Too often, promising diagnostic technologies struggle to progress due to gaps between laboratory science, device design, regulatory expectations and real-world use. OPD’s work focuses on closing these gaps by embedding evidence generation into development from the outset, whether that is demonstrating assay interaction with microfluidics, supporting near-patient usability, or building technical confidence ahead of clinical evaluation and fundraising.

This evidence-driven mindset strongly reflects the priorities championed by BIVDA: ensuring diagnostics innovation is not only inventive, but reliable, scalable and clinically meaningful.

Expanding networks across the diagnostics ecosystem

A key driver for joining BIVDA is the opportunity to broaden and deepen our network within the diagnostics community. Diagnostics is inherently collaborative: innovation depends on close interaction between developers, suppliers, labs, clinicians, regulators and commissioners. Being part of BIVDA allows OPD to engage more closely with organisations across this landscape, share experience, and form partnerships that accelerate progress for patients.

Active contribution through BIVDA working parties

OPD is particularly keen to contribute to BIVDA’s working parties, including:

• The BIVDA Innovation Working Party, where our experience of early-stage diagnostics development and evidence generation can inform discussion around how innovation is most effectively de-risked and translated.
• The BIVDA Infectious Diseases & Near Patient Testing Working Party, an increasingly important area where integrated bioscience, rapid testing, usability and system-level deployment are tightly interlinked.

Through these groups, OPD aims to contribute practical, development-led insight into what supports successful diagnostics innovation from feasibility and proof-of-principle through to adoption at scale.

A collective voice for practical innovation

Finally, OPD sees BIVDA membership as an opportunity to help strengthen the collective voice of the diagnostics industry. As a consultancy embedded within development programmes, rather than positioned as a product supplier, OPD can help articulate the real-world challenges innovators face when moving from concept to clinical reality.

We are proud to join BIVDA and look forward to working with fellow members to support a diagnostics sector that is evidence-led, collaborative and focused on delivering lasting impact for patients and healthcare systems.

Part of the BIVDA community?

OPD works alongside diagnostics innovators to generate the evidence that underpins credible, scalable diagnostic products. Let’s explore how integrated bioscience and engineering can support your next challenge.