Jason Norman is not the kind of founder who set out to build a company. Two years after finishing a PhD in liquid crystal lasers, he was in the right room at the right moment when his supervisor's decade-long work on flexible pressure sensors needed someone to take it to market. That opportunistic leap has become FlexiSense, a company developing low-cost wearable pressure sensors that could transform how the NHS treats chronic wounds.

The problem FlexiSense is solving sounds almost too simple: compression therapy - wrapping a bandage around a leg to treat venous ulcers - is done entirely by feel. There is no measurement, no feedback, no right dose confirmed. Too much pressure and patients can lose a limb; too little and the wound never heals. The NHS is spending roughly £2 billion a year on wound care, with a small minority of chronic patie ...