Founded in 1998, Astron Clinica is an emerging medical device company that has developed Spectrophotometric Intracutaneous Analysis (SIA™), a unique and patented imaging technology with potential applications in epithelial tissues including skin, linings of the lung, gastrointestinal tract and linings of the genital tract. SIA™ is the first of a new generation of 'smart spectral imaging' techniques, where a mathematical model is used to compute tissue structure directly from spectral measurements. Each year the U.S. spends $100bn treating cancer and SIA™ is expected to be a potential diagnostic tool in about half of all life threatening cancers. In cancer care, a device that can identify disease at an earlier stage has a profound impact on treatment, mortality and cost. Melanoma rates are increasing worldwide, and early diagnosis offers the best chance of complete cure. However, diagnosis is difficult and doctors remove many benign lesions to ensure they catch the melanomas. The SIAscope™ has been shown in clinical trials to improve the diagnostic accuracy of clinicians, allowing them to correctly diagnose more melanomas while avoiding unnecessary surgery.