Upfront Diagnostics Launches LVOne Rapid Stroke Blood Test Following Receiving UKCA; First Deployment Begins With London Ambulance Service

May 5, 2026 – Cambridge, UK – Upfront Diagnostics today announced the commercial launch of LVOne, a rapid blood test designed to help identify large vessel occlusion (LVO) strokes in the pre-hospital setting. The test has received UKCA marking, enabling clinical use in the United Kingdom, and is now being deployed in partnership with London Ambulance Service (LAS).

LVOne is designed to help paramedics identify patients likely experiencing severe stroke while still in the ambulance, allowing emergency teams to route those patients directly to specialist stroke centres capable of performing mechanical thrombectomy, a time-critical procedure that removes large clots from brain arteries.

The first deployment will equip approximately 280 London Ambulance Service vehicles serving North Central, North West, and North East London, covering a population of roughly 6.5 million people. During the six-month pilot, paramedics will test suspected stroke patients using the finger-prick blood test.

“Receiving the UKCA mark and launching LVOne represents a major milestone for Upfront Diagnostics and for stroke care more broadly,” said Gonzalo Ladreda, CEO and co-founder of Upfront Diagnostics. “After eight years of research and development, we are now bringing this technology into real-world emergency care. Our goal is to give paramedics actionable information within minutes so patients with severe stroke can be transported directly to hospitals equipped to treat them.”

Stroke treatment is highly time-dependent. In patients with large vessel occlusion, mechanical thrombectomy can significantly improve outcomes, but only when performed quickly at specialized stroke centres. Many patients currently lose critical time due to not recognising the subtype of stroke early on. 

LVOne measures two blood biomarkers—D-dimer, associated with clot formation, and GFAP, associated with bleeding in the brain—to help differentiate stroke types and identify patients likely experiencing LVO. The test is designed to deliver results in less than  10 minutes from a finger-prick blood sample.

The London deployment is being led by Dr. Robert Simister, consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, University College London Hospitals (UCLH), in collaboration with London Ambulance Service and several major stroke centres across the capital.

“Rapid identification of large vessel occlusion is one of the biggest challenges in stroke care,” said Dr. Robert Simister, lead investigator for the London programme. “By enabling paramedics to identify likely LVO stroke in the ambulance, we can prepare specialist stroke teams before the patient arrives and potentially reduce treatment delays significantly.”

Paramedics participating in the pilot will combine LVOne testing with existing pre-hospital stroke assessment and video triage tools to determine whether patients should be transported directly to London’s Hyper Acute Stroke Units (HASUs) that provide thrombectomy services.

London Ambulance Service responds to more than two million emergency calls each year and serves a population of over nine million residents across the capital. “Our paramedics are often the first clinicians to assess stroke patients,” said Ken Crossley, London Ambulance Service. “Tools that help identify the most severe strokes earlier have the potential to improve how quickly patients receive specialist treatment.”

Upfront Diagnostics developed LVOne over eight years through support from the University of Cambridge and Newcastle University, Innovate UK, the NHS, SBRI Healthcare, Stroke Association and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The company expects the UKCA marking to support broader adoption of the test in emergency stroke systems and is exploring additional clinical deployments beyond the initial London programme.

About Upfront Diagnostics

Founded in Cambridge, UK in 2017, Upfront Diagnostics is a medtech company developing point-of-care diagnostic tests for time-critical medical conditions. The company’s lead product, LVOne, is designed to help emergency teams identify severe stroke earlier and improve triage decisions in the pre-hospital setting.