From a Garage to the Prix Galien UK Awards: The Story Behind Our Nomination

Five years ago, I was sat in my garage in South Wales during COVID, watching the world change and trying to work out how I could help.

I didn't have a lab. I didn't have a background in diagnostics. What I had was a growing sense that something was shifting in how ordinary people thought about their own health — and a stubborn belief that they deserved better access to it.

This month, that belief took me and my brother Harry somewhere we never expected: the Prix Galien UK Awards in London, with U-Test @ Home nominated for Best Medical Technology.

If you'd told me five years ago that's where this would lead, I'd have laughed.

A simple idea, formed in a strange time

During the pandemic, something changed in how people related to testing. For the first time, millions of ordinary people were getting fast, clear health information without waiting days for answers or relying on someone else to interpret them. They could find out what they needed to know quickly — on their own terms, often in their own homes.

I watched it unfold and couldn't stop thinking about how powerful that was. It felt like a glimpse of how health information should work: simple, fast and available to everyone, not locked behind appointments, waiting lists or cost.

That idea stuck with me. I had no idea at the time that it would go on to shape the rest of my life.

Building U-Test

The mission behind U-Test has always been embarrassingly simple. We believe health testing should be available to everyone — not just those who can afford it, and not just those who know how to navigate the system to get it.

So we set out to build rapid test kits that anyone could pick up, use with confidence and understand without a medical degree. No jargon. No gatekeeping. Just clear answers when people need them.

It hasn't always been smooth. Building a diagnostics business from a standing start in South Wales means learning fast, getting things wrong, and obsessing over the details most people never see — the accuracy, the instructions, the experience of opening the box and actually trusting what you're holding. Every kit that goes out the door has to earn that trust.

But that simple belief has carried us a long way. Far enough, it turns out, to end up on one of healthcare's biggest stages.

The night itself

Walking into the Prix Galien UK Awards in London was genuinely surreal. The room was full of world-class scientists, clinicians, innovators and healthcare leaders — people who've spent careers pushing medicine forward. And there we were, two brothers who started this in a garage, being recognised among them.

It wasn't surreal because of the nomination itself. It was surreal because of the journey. From a global pandemic and a half-formed idea, to a category called Best Medical Technology, surrounded by people we've admired for years.

We didn't win on the night. And honestly, that's okay. We left feeling something far more valuable than a trophy: proof that the thing we set out to do actually matters. That a business built on accessibility, not exclusivity, has a place at the top table.

What this really means

A nomination like this isn't a finish line. If anything, it's a reminder of how far we still have to go.

There are still too many people who put off finding out something about their health because the process feels slow, expensive or intimidating. Every one of those people is the reason U-Test exists. The Prix Galien recognition doesn't change the mission — it sharpens it.

To everyone who's bought a kit, recommended us to a friend, or simply backed what we're trying to build: this nomination belongs to you as much as it does to us. You're the proof that accessible testing isn't a nice idea — it's something real people want and use.

We're proud of how far we've come. We're more excited about what's next.

U-tests for the masses, not the privileged few.

— Jamie & Harry, U-Test