Galway-based MedTech company Versono Medical has opened its newly-expanded laboratories and offices over two floors at its current facility in Parkmore Business Park. The company, founded in 2018 by CEO Finbar Dolan and CTO Hugh O’Donoghue, has grown from just two people to 22 since it opened.
Versono Medical is a trailblazer in the area of treating vascular disease, with a focus on developing new technologies for endovascular surgery.
The official opening was conducted this week by Minister of State at the Department of Transport Hildegarde Naughton and attended by Tom Kelly, divisional manager with Cleantech, Electronics and Life Sciences. The opening comes after Versono Medical was recently awarded, with its partners, a €7m grant – the largest of the recently-announced Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund awards.
The funding was for the Vascusense programme, led by Versono, which builds on the company’s platform technology through a programme of strategic research with consortium partners Interger Holdings, Technological University of Dublin, and University of Galway.
It also followed an announcement last May that it had raised €6.7 million in new funding to boost the company’s bid to bring its ground-breaking Fastwire intravascular medical device to market.
Versono’s revolutionary Fastwire technology employs novel ultrasonic technology to treat the most severe and advanced form of peripheral vascular disease. The new device technology platform will help reduce the need for more invasive and traumatic surgical procedures, leading to better outcomes for patients who could otherwise be facing the prospect of amputation and even death.
“We are delighted to expand the business in Galway which is a leading global hub for MedTech,” John O’Shaughnessy, chairman of Versono, said at the launch. “The prospect of new Irish companies like Versono producing world class innovative products and technologies for patients and physicians around the world, is truly exciting. The focused collaboration the DTIF award, by building bridges between R&D done by researchers in universities and industry, fosters sustained innovation, focused on real clinical needs, and creating real jobs in R&D and commercialisation.”
Minister Hildegarde Naughton wished the Versono team “every success in their impressive newly-expanded facility”.
“It is exciting to see the expansion of such a disruptive vascular device company designed and built in Galway, one of the world’s leading centres of excellence in MedTech,” she added. “The emergence of new, innovation led, MedTech companies is critical to advancing and sustaining the industry in Ireland.
“Disruptive innovation, like Versono’s, can enable small companies to build businesses capable of competing - and even leading - in global marketplaces. The Government’s DTIF programme recognises that small Irish businesses can produce and commercialise innovative products and that larger companies can help them in scaling the commercial opportunity.
“The DTIF, through projects like Vascusense, is designed to assist companies collaborate and leverage the State’s research infrastructure at third level in order to innovate. Its purpose is to help overcome the challenges faced in creating disruptive technology and in finding the capital to commercialise it. Its aim is to help achieve the Government’s goal of protecting existing jobs and creating new ones, while sustaining and strategically growing the Irish economy.”
