HealthBeacon to triple workforce after €100m flotation

HealthBeacon, a Dublin-based medical technology company, aims to triple its workforce to 150 in the next two years under an expansion plan tied to a €25 million initial public offering (IPO), its co-founder and chief executive said.

The money being raised in the share sale to stock market investors in the coming weeks will equate to about a 25 per cent stake in the company, according to market sources.

That means it will have a market value of about €100 million at the time of its planned flotation next month in Euronext Dublin’s junior market. Goodbody Stockbrokers is managing the transaction.

The company, which has developed a solution that helps patients better adhere to injectable medications schedules, forecasts it will have about 10,200 units deployed to patients using its system by the end of 2021.

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Target

HealthBeacon has a near-term target of having 100,000 units deployed by the end of 2023. It was co-founded in Dublin in 2013 by chief executive and Boston native, Jim Joyce, and chief technology officer, Kieran Daly. Former tánaiste Mary Harney is on its board of directors, while equity backers include Enterprise Ireland, Bill McCabe's Oyster Capital, Cantor Fitzgerald and Elkstone Partners.

“We are raising the capital to try and triple the size of the team to build the supply system to get 100,000 devices out globally,” said Mr Joyce. “The money is being used for the very specific objective of preparing the company for scale.”

HealthBeacon has more than 50 employees, about 30 of whom are based in Dublin. It plans to grow the team to 150 over the next 24 months, with the Irish workforce expanding proportionately to 90, said Mr Joyce, who has worked in the Republic for the past two decades, including periods as general Ireland manager for Schering-Plough, now part of pharma giant Merck & Co, and as founder of Point of Care Health Services, a specialist nursing business which he sold to Uniphar in 2013.

HealthBeacon’s flagship product is a smart sharps bin approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for use by patients who inject medication at home.

The bin, which is a little bigger than a standard toaster, is digitally connected to an individual’s smartphone and is used for the disposal of injector pens and syringes as well as to track individual patients’ adherence to medication regimes and to remind them to stay on track if necessary.

Research has pointed to a 19 per cent improvement in therapy persistence by patients who administer injectable medications at home using HealthBeacon’s injection care management solution, according to the company.

The business has grown its customer base to 18 blue chip customers, among them some of the leading global pharmaceutical companies, and operates in 17 countries, including the Republic.

Deal

HealthBeacon’s flotation would be the second such Irish deal so far in 2021, following the €12 million IPO of Irish-led but Dutch-based renewable energy company Corre Energy in September. It is also the first of 35 graduates of Euronext Dublin’s pre-IPO programme, IPOready, which has been running since 2015, to actually take the plunge.

The company had raised about €25 million in various equity funding rounds before launching the IPO, with other backers including Crow Rock Capital, led by lawyer and former Malin Corp chairman John Given, and BVP Investments.

The stakes of current investors and management, who own about 25 per cent of the company, including about 16 per cent held by Mr Joyce, will be diluted by the IPO.

The company said that certain existing shareholders may also sell down some of their holdings into the market subject to investor demand for the IPO shares. Mr Joyce said that management will not be taking part in a sell-down. He declined to say what other investors might place shares, or confirm the overall valuation that market sources have put on the business as a result of the IPO.