Croom Medical, a company that manufactures medical devices, has announced intentions to hire 80 people as it launches a new €12 million facility in its hometown of Croom, Co. Limerick.

The business also disclosed its ambitions to build a second production facility in Limerick, which is scheduled to debut in 2023.

The company expects to hire more people in 2023 in addition to the 80 new positions that were just announced.

Just a year ago, the company employed 45 employees; now, as it expands its operations in response to the quickly rising demand, that number is expected to reach 170 by the end of this year.

The business is near to a concentration of major enterprises in Ireland’s south and west that belong to international producers of medical devices.

Paddy Byrnes founded Croom Medical in 1984, specialising in the machining and handling of precious metals for use in sterile settings. His son Patrick Byrnes, who joined in 2018, is now in charge of the business.

Growth capital investor BGF made a multi-million investment for a minority stake in the business in 2020. Enterprise Ireland is a shareholder in the business as well.

Former Glen Dimplex Chief Operating Officer Michael Maher was named Non-Executive Chairman at the time of the BGF investment. He participated in the capital raise that year as a co-investor with BGF.

The first pain-free, portable method to stop chemotherapy-induced hair loss is being developed by Luminate Medical and is called LILY.

The insecurities experienced by cancer patients who are experiencing hair loss served as inspiration for the idea. It is hoped that the device would eventually receive FDA approval in the US after being tested on healthy people in University Hospital Galway.

Lily will stop the negative side effects of chemotherapy in an area that is generally not impacted by cancer.

The compression cap’s mechanism of operation involves exerting pressure to the entire scalp’s surface. It stops chemotherapy from entering blood arteries close to hair follicles, halting the hair loss process. Currently, the primary technique of treatment for chemotherapy-related hair loss is scalp cooling, however this approach frequently results in severe pain.

Luminate Medical also wants to make the gadget as widely available as possible to the general public, with the goal of using it in public healthcare settings.

For further information on Luminate Medical and Lily, click here

A $35 million investment for the first stage of an expansion plan for SK Biotek Ireland’s pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Dublin has been announced by SK Pharmteco (SKPT), a worldwide CDMO and division of SK Inc.

The site’s manufacturing capacity and capabilities will significantly grow as a result of this initiative, benefiting its international clientele. The new structure will open in 2024, the year the Swords Campus celebrates 60 years of producing small molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients. Patients will then have access to some of the top therapies in the world, including a number of oncology and cardiology medications.

The expansion will happen over two phases, phase 1 of the project will include a new manufacturing facility, increasing reactor volume capacity by 26.5 m3, along with utilities, filtration and drying equipment, and the option to add more manufacturing lines and technologies in following phases.

The new facility will be situated near to other site facilities on the site’s demolished industrial building’s footprint.

When the project is finished, the Swords Campus’s capacity will have increased by 50% overall.

With more than 1,000 applications for only 50 places, two Irish medtech companies secure a place in this year’s MedTech Innovator accelerator program.

Neurovalens, based in Belfast, and SymPhysis Medical, based in Galway, have been chosen to join a number of other companies from around the world in this year’s program.

MedTech Innovator, based in California, is one of the world’s most well-known competitions. It is for medical device, digital health and diagnostic start-ups, with the goal of accelerating the growth of companies that are changing the healthcare system.

The companies involved will receive coaching and high-profile visibility at the WSGR Medical Device conference in San Francisco this month and The MedTech Innovator Showcase programme at the MedTech Conference in Boston in October.  In a final competition at the end of the program, MedTech Innovator will award $500,000 in cash and in-kind rewards.

Neurovalens specialises in tackling health difficulties with non-invasive neurotechnology, such as metabolic illnesses like Type 2 diabetes and obesity. Its medical devices give non-invasive electrical stimulation to the brain and nervous system’s most important locations.

SymPhysis is developing a minimally invasive device with an active component for treating malignant pleural effusions, or fluid build-up in the lungs. Late-stage breast and lung cancer patients may develop this illness, which causes significant shortness of breath, chest pain, and anxiety.