University of Galway and TE Connectivity support facility to build on success of BioInnovate Ireland

 University of Galway and TE Connectivity have entered a new partnership in support of the University’s Ian Quinn Centre for Health Technology Innovation, building on the success of the BioInnovate Ireland programme.

Established in 2011, BioInnovate Ireland was created to anchor the medical device sector in Ireland by educating and training future entrepreneurs. To date, the programme has trained 159 Fellows and led to 35 companies, 24 of which are alumni-led high potential start-ups.

The Ian Quinn Centre is building on the success of the BioInnovate programme and the wider medtech and digital health community by providing co-working space, mentorship and global connections to emerging start-ups, as well as being a venue for industry, clinicians and campus-based innovators to come together and accelerate health technologies.

This new partnership will include mentorship, site visits and other opportunities for engagement between TE experts, and BioInnovate Fellows and alumni, as well as philanthropic support to help establish the new Centre.

The new Centre is named in memory of the late Ian Quinn, a visionary in medical device design and innovation. He founded Creganna with his brother, where he served as chief executive for 25 years. Having witnessed the decline of the IT hardware industry and other industries in Ireland, Ian Quinn set about ensuring that the medical device industry would not suffer the same fate. Creganna would go on to become TE Connectivity following its acquisition in 2016.

            Interim President of University of Galway, Professor Peter McHugh, said: “We are grateful for this new partnership with TE, which supports the development of the Ian Quinn Centre. This new Centre underscores the importance of our work for the public good and for fostering innovation which will greatly benefit future medtech solutions and development, both here in Galway and globally.”

            Pat Duane, SVP and GM Medical, TE Connectivity, said: “TE is proud to support the new Ian Quinn Centre, honouring the legacy of Ian Quinn’s vision and investing in the future strength of the medtech sector here in Ireland and beyond.”

            Martin O’Halloran, Executive Director of BioInnovate Ireland, said: “This new partnership with TE’s medical business is a great example of the importance of creating strong University-industry partnerships that strengthen the entire medtech ecosystem.”

Following a visit to Stanford BioDesign, Ian Quinn spearheaded the foundation of BioInnovate Ireland, along with Enterprise Ireland and University of Galway, bringing the BioDesign model to Ireland, with the aim of creating a fellowship programme to educate and train innovators in the sector. More than a decade later, Ireland has become a global hub for medtech and digital health, with more than 450 companies, of which, 60% are homegrown. One in 8 Irish medtech companies have come from BioInnovate Ireland.

The BioInnovate programme, which is funded under Enterprise Ireland’s Innovators’ Initiative, takes in 12 participants a year to complete a 10-month specialist, medical device innovation training programme. It combines teams of high-calibre, experienced professionals from medical, engineering, business and technical backgrounds whose aim is to discover unmet healthcare needs and align them with market opportunities. The participants are rigorously selected to contribute their skills, knowledge and expertise as part of multi-disciplinary teams. During the programme they are awarded a scholarship and receive mentorship from industry, clinicians, venture capitalists, domain experts and academics. Each team focuses on one specific clinical area and they have the opportunity to complete 8 weeks of clinical immersion to identify unmet needs in that area at hospitals in Galway and nationwide.

BioInnovate is supported under the Innovators’ Initiative Programme co-funded by the Government of Ireland and the European Union through the Northern and Western Regional Programme 2021-2027.

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