Business partner programme connects entrepreneurs with inventors

WHEN GERRY Burke met Danny Kelly, they clicked right away. Mr Burke was looking for his next venture and Mr Kelly had some medical device technology from a research project at Trinity College Dublin that fitted the bill.

Fast forward a year or so and a firm is being set up to develop and commercialise the technology. Artistent is a stenting device to help prop open arteries in people with peripheral vascular disease.

So how did their paths cross? It started when Mr Burke spotted an advert for Enterprise Ireland’s first business partners programme.

“A former venture hadn’t worked out and I was looking for something to do,” says Mr Burke, a microbiologist with several years of experience in the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors.

He was selected for the programme and got a list of 120 university-based research projects with potential business opportunities. He shortlisted 12 and talked to the inventors.

“I was surprised at the nature, extent and quality of the research in Ireland. It’s very good,” says Mr Burke, although he noticed the researchers sometimes needed more business input.

“Talking to investigators and inventors, they often overestimated or underestimated what the technology was going to do or what it was worth. The researchers needed someone with commercial acumen to say this is ready to go or not ready to go.”

When he met engineer Dr Daniel Kelly though, things fell into place.

“The chemistry started up quickly,” recalls Mr Burke. “He had worked for some time in the business, so he understood why I was asking the questions I was asking and he was willing to answer them.”

The technology was also at a suitable point to start preclinical trials, so under the business partner programme, Mr Burke started to run with the idea of Artistent. He came up with a business proposal and Enterprise Ireland came up with a grant.

“When I looked at the technology, I said this matches what I was looking for. I wanted to set up an indigenous company to commercialise this project,” says Mr Burke, who has now established Synergy Flow to commercialise Artistent and is eyeing up a premises in Letterkenny.

“This isn’t going to be the Google of medical devices, but I have identified a specific niche for it and the product is export-oriented,” he says.

“I’ll start looking for funding over the next month; I have a five-year plan that begins at nought and ends up with a turnover of about €10 million per annum and employing 40 people.”

Other successful partnerships have also been matched through that round of the programme, says Gearóid Mooney, Enterprise Ireland’s director of ICT commercialisation. They include one with Miravex, a spin-out from Trinity whose handheld product Antera 3D offers a close-up look at the skin’s surface so it can be assessed before and after treatment.

Enterprise Ireland is putting together a new panel of individuals for the business partners initiative to look at about 140 projects from universities. “Having someone with commercial skills will move a project that won’t move itself,” says Mr Mooney.

Gerry Burke will talk at the Applied Research Forum, hosted by Enterprise Ireland this Wednesday at the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin