Tony Marchington

Dr Anthony Frank (Tony) Marchington (2 December 1955 – 16 October 2011) was an English biotechnology entrepreneur and businessman, famous as the co-founder of Oxford Molecular, and the former owner of the famous Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman locomotive.

Born in Buxton, Derbyshire, he was brought up on the family farm in Buxworth. He passed his motorcycle test at the age of 16, having learned to ride his father's 1914 Bradbury motorcycle and sidecar combination. He attended New Mills Grammar School. He gained his Bachelors, Masters and D.Phil at Brasenose College, Oxford.

While at Oxford, Marchington befriended and later lodged with American Walter Hooper, the last personal secretary of the writer C.S. Lewis. Through this relationship, Marchington: shared a lectern with Hooper in 1975 in North Carolina; co-wrote the script of Through Joy and Beyond, the 1977 documentary life of Lewis; and created the Lewis bonfire hoax letter, sent to Christianity and Literature in 1978.

Marchington began his career as a product manager with ICI Agrochemicals in 1983, becoming marketing manager for South America in 1986.

In 1988, he started several companies in the areas of intellectual property, drug discovery and biotechnology. As these expanded, in the same year, under his tutor Professor Graham Richards, Marchington co-founded Oxford Molecular Ltd. (later to become Oxford Molecular Plc.). Worth £450 million at its peak, it was eventually sold for £70million.

A former member of the Department of Trade and Industry's Competitiveness Advisory Group, from 2000 Marchington's entrepreneurial activities included: running Marchington Consulting, based at the Sheffield Bioincubator; CEO at Savyon Diagnostics; and co-founded, as chairman and director, Venture Hothouse Ltd. From 2010, Marchington was CEO at Oxford Medical Diagnostics; leading the development and application of advanced proprietary methods of gas analysis; and in particular, the development of breath analysis for the screening of type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

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