Find new ways to succeed

STRATEGY:Stoke Bio is still burning money and tens of millions [of euro] will be required on development, but we are optimistic that the system will be successful

Heart surgeons will soon use tiny springs, one-third the thickness of a hair, made by a small, but constantly innovative family-owned Limerick company to treat stroke patients.

Thirty years ago, Shannon Coiled Springs made baling and fence wire, before going on to make springs for the first generation of home alarms, and then on to supplying the construction industry.

In today's business world, according to the Government, companies must endlessly innovate, constantly update and improve machinery, and ceaselessly search for new business opportunities.

Fitting the model so neatly, Shannon Coiled Springs, founded and still run by John Walsh, seems lifted straight from central casting. "We have always searched for new and better ways of doing things," says Walsh.

Now employing 70 people in two locations, Walsh, then happily and profitably supplying the building industry, decided that it was, nevertheless, time to reduce his exposure to that particular sector.

"We thought that the building industry was going to fizzle out, that we couldn't go on building the numbers of houses that we were doing.

"Of course, it increased subsequently, but they are falling back now. So, we started looking around. We looked at everything. What type of expertise did we have?

"We discovered that when it came to making very small springs that we were steps ahead of other people," he says.

From two years of research, the Ballysimon Road-based company embarked on a partnership with the University of Limerick, funded by Enterprise Ireland's Innovation Partnership Programme.

The collaboration between UL's Enterprise Research Centre, led by Dr Mark Southern, produced coiling wires that could be made just one-thousandth of an inch wide suitable for neuro-surgery.

"If you had some of these springs in the palm of your hand you would not be able to see them," said Walsh, explaining that the springs will be useful in the treatment of strokes, where veins get blocked.

"These springs and guide wires can be pushed through small veins allowing neurosurgeons to free up blockages or deliver electric currents to particular areas in a non-invasive way," he explains.

But more uses will come in time. Coated by a heat-retaining coating, the springs can be used to cauterize wounds. "This would get rid of the need for major surgery, where you have to take off the top of a patient's head," says Walsh.

Now, Shannon Coiled Springs has reached deals with companies in Switzerland, Israel and Germany to test out the springs before an attempt is made to sell them to the medical world.

The development of the new product has already excited interest. "People we have tried to get to for years are now ringing us," says Walsh, who is proud of the achievements of his company and colleagues.

"We have always updated our equipment quickly, got rid of it long before it was obsolete, invested in training. "We have always tried to do things better," he says.

Meanwhile, another Limerick company, Stoke's Bio intends to "revolutionise the diagnosis of disease" using technology it has developed that enables doctors to analyse all types of tissue samples for cancer, cheaply and quickly.

Dr Tara Dalton, one of Stoke Bio's co-founders and now its chief scientific officer, says the technology could, in time, be used to check "the most non-invasive of all samples - blood".

Stokes' "micro-fluidic" hardware is now en route to the Patterson Institute in Manchester where it will be trialed alongside existing diagnostic equipment - a critical step in the product's route to the commercial market.

"Cancers have an underlying cause. Bio-markers give an indication of the prognosis, the diagnosis of a disease, and, whether a patient is responding to treatment," she says.

Founded in 2005, the company is still "burning money" and "tens of millions" will be required to be spent on development, but Dalton is optimistic that the system will be successful.

Eirzyme could work well with waste paper and organic material - Dr Daniel O'Mahony, director of NUIG's Technology Transfer Office You have to tailor your product, you have to fill gaps in the market, you have to be flexible - Pat Layde of General Paints

Each assay on a tissue sample can be checked for just 5 cent, which could prove a significant saving to hospitals who often carry out between 50 and 100 assays on each potential tumour they encounter today.

The system, unlike its competitors, can be brought into the field using hand-held monitors, creating opportunities that it could be used to do on-the-spot checks in Third World countries for malaria, and other diseases.

The major hurdle that had to be overcome was power. "Each sample has to be heated up and then cooled down 50 times. Heating up is easy," says Dalton.

"Cooling down isn't. That requires a lot of power," she says.

However, the hardware, fuelled by batteries, or solar power, has now been built, and validation is now underway. "It would be of great interest to organisations like the World Health Organisation who have to monitor epidemiology," believes Dalton.

Because the tool is easy to use and delivers results instantly, it could eliminate the need for expensive facilities. It could also be suitable in Third World countries where the numbers of medical staff can be low. As well as this, it can be used to check patients' response to treatment, the company believes.

The same hunger for new ideas and new ways of doing business is evident in Pat Layde of General Paints in Celbridge, Co Kildare, who has long had to compete and survive against major multi-national competitors.

Today, General Paints believes it can make money out of noise, or, more accurately, by using "an acoustic paint" in delivery vans that helps to reduce, or even eliminates noise from inner-city shop deliveries.

"All European governments want to get people living in their city centres as much as possible, but one of the most unattractive things about that is that you get woken up early in the morning by shop deliveries," he says.

Spurred on the impending arrival of a European Union directive in 2008, General Paints went into alliance with the Dublin Institute of Technology's Centre for Research in Engineering Surface Technology (CREST).

The partnership looked at everything that causes noises. "Does the driver leave the engine running? How much noise does the refrigeration make? What noise comes from the cages used to carry goods?" asks Layde.

The paint made by General Paints on its own cuts noise by 15 decibels, and further reductions will follow if plastic, rather than metal cages, are used, and the metal coasters on the cages are also changed to plastic.

However, cutting noise from delivery trucks in the city centre so that residents can remain asleep is but one of the acoustic paint's possible uses, says Layde, who has served as General Paints' operations director since 1999.

Most new buildings are built using metal frames. "The beams could be painted, thus reducing the transmission of noise and vibration throughout the building. There are loads of ways that it could be used," he says.

Pressed by competition from Dulux, Fleetwood and Axo, General Paints, better known on the shop shelves for selling colortrend paints, has had to dance clever to survive.

Today, the Celbridge-based company employs seven full-time qualified chemists and two highly experienced technicians in the hunt to develop "new technologies to meet customer and market needs".

"We are competing against major multi-nationals. We are in existence for 53 years and the fact that we have survived is an indication that small and medium-sized companies can match up to the big guy.

"But you have to tailor your product, you have to fill gaps in the market, you have to be flexible. And not to be immodest about it, we are doing quite well," he says proudly.

Besides searching for industrial opportunities, General Paints has also sought to carve out gains in the home paint market, one that is now thriving as the Irish seek to beautify their abodes.

"We came up with the idea of offering A4 colour sheets, rather than customers having to take small paint tubs, so that they could get a real idea of what the colour would look like on the wall.

"For a long time, we believed that we had to keep our heads down and stay below the radar because, otherwise, we would come to the attention of the big guys. Now we believe that we can compete," he says.

While Shannon Coiled Spring and Stokes Bio's work will help to save lives, and General Paints to cut noise, a company has emerged out of University College, Galway that hopes to help save the planet, and make money doing it.

Eirzyme, backed by a €10 million investment from Canadian biofuels company, Micromills, will produce cheap enzymes that will dramatically increase the amount of ethanol that can be harvested from grains, organic waste, tree trimmings.

Set up in the Enterprise Ireland-funded incubator at the National University of Ireland, Galway, on the back of the invention by Dr Maria Tuohy, Eirzyme is the product of 10 years of research so far.

The enzymes will convert biomass and cellulosic rich materials and feedstocks, such as "distillers' grain" to simple sugars and thereafter to bioethanol, biogas such as methane and other by-products, such as the gluey lignins that can be harvested from trees.

Unlike Mother Nature, the enzymes work fast, since they are able to do their work within 24 to 48 hours, rather than the 42-day natural cycle, and sharply increase the yield of sugars available while they are it.

While the invention offers the prospect of green, environmentally-friendly fuel, it could prove to be one of the solutions to cope with the mountain of waste produced by people since it works equally well on rubbish.

Currently, most organic waste still ends up in landfill in the State's rapidly-crowding rubbish tips, even though householders are becoming increasingly good at composting at home as they seek to avoid collection bills.

"Organic waste is rich in carbohydrates. It would work with waste paper. Waste paper is cellulose-rich. And it would work with seaweed. And it works at high temperatures," says Dr Daniel O'Mahony, director of NUIG's Technology Transfer Office.