Limerick’s Serosep crowned Irish Medtech Company of the Year 2021

2 Dec 2021

Irish Medtech Association director Sinead Keogh, head of life sciences, talent and innovation at IDA Ireland Michael Lohan, and Enterprise Ireland head of life sciences Deirdre Glenn. Image: Conor McCabe

Other winners at the Irish Medtech Association awards included Alcon Ireland, West, Vertigenius, Luminate Medical, Biomec, Jabil Healthcare, Cook Medical and Aerogen.

Limerick-headquartered Serosep has been named Irish Medtech Company of the Year at a virtual conference hosted today (2 December) by The Irish Medtech Association with Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland.

The Irish Medtech Association, which represents the medtech sector in Ireland, announced the award at its annual Medtech Rising conference. This year’s awards ceremony featured new categories, with Alcon Ireland winning Sustainable Medtech Company of the Year and West scooping the Best Medtech Talent Strategy Award.

According to the association’s director Sinéad Keogh, the annual awards ceremony offers the medtech community a chance to “recognise and celebrate the strength and importance of the industry in improving life”.

“The sector has remained resilient despite the challenges of the Covid pandemic, with over 42,000 people now working in the industry, across 450 companies,” she added.

The overall winner, Serosep, is a self-funded, family-run business that manufactures clinical diagnostic products at its base in Annacotty, Co Limerick.

It serves more than 35 different countries across five continents. The company is 25 years in business and employs 114 people. Earlier this year, it announced a five-year contract to supply its gastroenteritis diagnostic system to Liverpool University Hospital. The company already supplies the NHS.

Serosep CEO and founder Dermot Scanlon said he was “humbled” to receive the award, adding that the company’s diagnostic test tools have “changed the way gastroenteritis is tested in clinical laboratories”.

“We are currently manufacturing in excess of 1m tests in our state-of-the-art facility,” he said, explaining that the award would motivate the company to “continue forging ahead, achieving bigger and better things”.

Other winners

Trinity College Dublin spin-out Vertigenius, which develops a platform to enhance clinical and patient engagement in the treatment of balance problems, won the eHealth Innovation of the Year Award.

Luminate Medical took home the Emerging Medtech Company of the Year Award. The NUI Galway spin-out has developed technology to address chemotherapy-induced hair loss.

NUI Galway’s Biomechanics Research Centre (Biomec) won the Academic Contribution to Medtech Award. Technology developed at this centre uses the latest in silico computational models to simulate the mechanical performance of implanted coronary stents.

Bray-based Jabil Healthcare scooped the Medtech Partner/Supplier of the Year Award for its new Covid-19 PCR testing device.

Cook Medical received the Women in Leadership Company initiative Award for its commitment to gender balance in the workplace.

Finally, the Covid-19 Response Recognition Award was given to Aerogen, which is developing an inhaled vaccine system. The company’s products have been used on more than 3m critically ill people since March 2020, according to Enterprise Ireland’s head of life sciences, Deirdre Glenn.

Aerogen also won last year’s Medtech Company of the Year award.

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Blathnaid O’Dea is Careers reporter at Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com