Funding boost for Galway medical devices firm

A Galway medical devices company is one of three Irish SMEs who were this week awarded €50,000 each for their innovative ideas.

DiaNia Technologies Ltd based in the NUI Galway Business Innovation Centre was one of three companies selected in the latest round of Horizon 2020.

The companies will use the money to finance feasibility studies and can also request up to three days of business coaching.

Sinead Kenny, co-founder of DiaNia Technologies which was set up in 2013, expressed her delight at the news.

“This funding under the EU’s SME Instrument is for our project on Advanced Extrusion Technologies for use in Catheter Based Medical Devices.

“ExtruLub is an innovative, disruptive extrusion technology with the ability to change the surface of a catheter without affecting core device properties, thereby leading to cost containment for the manufacturer and profile reduction of the end product,” she explained.

DiaNia Technologies specialises in medical device materials technology.  Their vision is to be a world class technology company focused on customer-driven solutions – and this funding will help towards that aim.

“As well as the €50,000, which will help our company to commercialise this, our initial product offering, our selection by the EU also gives us access to a network of truly great mentors whom we look forward to engaging with,” said Sinead.

“It’s a great boost to our confidence to have been selected from amongst 1,569 other SMEs from right across Europe – we are one of 161 which were selected in this round and only one of three from Ireland!

“Once we had our ideas and vision clearly set out we set about applying to Horizon 2020.  It was a very straight forward application we submitted our application in March 2015 and heard the good news last week,” she added.

The other Irish companies to benefit this time were Aperilink Ltd in Dublin and IRIS Advanced Engineering Ltd in Kerry.

This brings to 30 the total number of Irish SMEs funded so far under the SME Instrument of Horizon 2020 – 25 Phase 1 receiving €50.000 each and five Phase 2 receiving up to €2.5 million each.

Across the EU, the European Commission announced 161 companies from 23 countries have been selected in the latest round of Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Phase 1.

The European Commission received 1,569 proposals under Phase 1 by the first cut-off date of 2015 on March 18; 251 received an evaluation score above the application threshold and 161 or 60.1% have been selected for funding.

Spanish SMEs have again been particularly successful with 34 beneficiaries accepted for funding, followed by firms from Italy (25) and the UK (18). Since the launch of the programme on 1st January 2014, 816 SMEs have been selected under Phase 1 of the SME Instrument.