Innovation Awards: The Shortlist

This month marks the culmination of The Irish TimesInnovation awards, with the winners announced at a ceremony on Wednesday, March 24th. Each of the 17 shortlisted finalists will give a detailed presentation on Friday, March 5th to our senior judging panel comprising: Paul Rellis, managing director, Microsoft Ireland; Barry Maloney, general partner, Balderton Capital; Liam Nellis, chief executive, InterTradeIreland; Liam Kavanagh, deputy managing director, The Irish Times; and Karlin Lillington, technology columnist, The Irish Times. Along with six category winners, one overall innovator of the year will be awarded a €200,000 communications package covering 12 months

Product/Services

INTIME MEDIA

InTime offers television and radio broadcasters downloadable applications for mobile phones that enable audience interaction via their mobile phones with programmes. Audiences can interact as the show is transmitted. It can synchronise events in a television or radio programme and therefore can offer more features than simple entries: regular shows, for example, could offer fans a quiz to play in real-time or get advance updates on what’s up next; entertainment audiences can judge and submit aspects of a performance, alongside general voting.

MCOR TECHNOLOGIES

Three-dimensional printers have been used by product designers and engineers to test designs for cars, airplanes and other products before they were sent to manufacturing. The focus has been primarily on creating physical models of new designs for review and evaluation on-site. Mcor Technologies has developed a patent pending machine that can turn ideas into rapid reality in a low cost eco-way. The “Matrix 300” 3-D printer produces physical 3-D models from digital data using regular A4 paper. Mcor claims the 3-D printer is the first and only one in the world to run on standard office paper and as a result is up to 50 times less expensive than the nearest competitors.

BIANCAMED

Originating as a research project in UCD, BiancaMed has developed a wireless sensor technology for the noncontact monitoring of sleep and breathing in the home. While people are investing increasing amounts of time, money and energy in proactively managing their health and personal wellbeing, sleep – one of the three pillars of health and wellbeing – is trailing behind. The firm claims research shows that 40 per cent of the population suffers from some form of insomnia in their lifetime. BiancaMed is finalising work on a product that monitors a baby’s breathing while she/he sleeps and a noncontact sleep monitor that records sleep quality to combat insomnia.

North/South Collaboration

CLINICAL CONDUCT ASSOCIATES

LTD Clinical Conduct Associates (CCA) carries out clinical trials on behalf of multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and has developed a new internet solution for the screening and recruitment of patients. Throughout the EU the regulations prohibit the use of advertising for clinical trials and depend on physician referral and GP surgery and hospital information. Understanding this legislation and developing in conjunction with each regulatory authority in the EU, CCA has engineered an approved process which abides by all international requirements. It claims the number of patients screened increases by more than 50 per cent compared with studies that use only traditional screening techniques.

UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER (C-TRIC)

The Clinical Translational Research and Innovation Centre (C-TRIC) led by the University of Ulster, Western Health and Social Care Trust and Derry City Council, facilitates clinical research and the streamlining of new developments from the laboratory to the marketplace. Located within the Altnagelvin Hospital complex, the facility supports a growing biotechnology cluster as well as representing an ideal point for US-based biotechnology and medical device industry to navigate the European regulatory compliance process and to access wider European healthcare markets.

Organisational system/process

BGATE TECHNOLOGY

Bgate has designed an order-capture and invoicing system that connects buyers and suppliers at a fraction of the costs of traditional business methods. The firm claims market research determines the cost of following an order from capture to invoice at about ¤107. Bgate claims to simplify the process by incorporating all of the steps on its system and is therefore in a position to charge just ¤2 per transaction. It is aimed at small, medium and large businesses on both the buyer and supplier sides of supply chains across all industries. Current clients include Allied Foods, Dunnes Stores and Burger King.

CONCERN WORLDWIDE, IRISH AID & VALID NUTRITION

A partnership between the three organisations, the end result is Community Therapeutic Care (CTC) and a new approach to tackling childhood malnutrition in developing countries. The most fatal form of child malnutrition – severe acute malnutrition (Sam) – affects over 19 million children and is associated with up to two million deaths annually. Previously, treatment was limited to a small number of in-patient feeding centres. Due to vast distances from villages to centres and long inpatient stays, accessing traditional inpatient treatment often caused parents to spend significant money on transport and to spend long periods away. CTC brings appropriate treatment into local clinics and engages communities to identify and follow-up malnourished children at household level. It is now promoted as best practice by the UN and a growing number of ministries of health and aid agencies. Alongside this, treatment of malnutrition traditionally used commercial products made in Europe or the US using ingredients from large commercial farmers. Importing food did nothing to prevent malnutrition or improve the food security of poor people, so Valid Nutrition set up its own factory in Malawi and has collaborations with local food manufacturers to produce VN-branded nutritional products in Kenya and soon in Ethiopia.

BAUSCH & LOMB IRELAND

Bausch & Lomb Ireland’s plant in Waterford makes more than 50,000 different batches of soft contact lenses. The challenge was how to significantly increase automation and reduce the time production lines had to be stopped between batches while at the same time, ensuring quality standards and ensuring that there was no possibility of a lens from one batch getting into the next one. The solution was the creation of a “gap of separation zone” at the Waterford plant, which is now a unique Bausch & Lomb patent.

Public service

NEUROLINK

Ireland has one of the lowest ratios of consultant neurologists per head of population in Europe, with only 20 consultant neurologists in the public hospital system while over 600,000 people in Ireland have a neurological problem. As a result, waiting times to see a neurologist in Ireland can be prohibitively long – up to two years in some institutions. Neurolink is a web-based, GP referral service designed by the consultant neurologists at St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin in collaboration with Healthlink. It speeds up the referral process to neurologists, reduces patient anxiety about what is happening between GPs and specialists, and reduces the need for almost 25 per cent of referred patients to attend out patients at all. The concept has been rolled out to other neurology units nationally and the National Cancer strategy of Ireland has adopted it for National use.

DUBLIN AIRPORT AUTHORITY

In 2006 new airport regulations meant passengers were prohibited from taking any liquids or gels in excess of 100ml or any combination in excess of 500ml through passenger screening. As a result many passengers were effectively prevented from purchasing at Irish airports, unless they could squeeze their purchases into their single piece of hand luggage. After Ryanair introduced its one-bag policy, Dublin Airport duty free noticed its sales drop by 30 per cent. To combat these factors DAA started its Shop & Collect system, where passengers can buy on their way out and collect when they return to Dublin. In its first seven months the service recorded ¤1 million sales to approximately 11,000 customers, or 15 per cent of departing passengers.

AGRI-FOOD & BIOSCIENCES INSTITUTE/CAFRE

The Pig Grading Information System (PiGIS) provides processors and producers with a facility to analyse and benchmark their data, in real-time, within processing plants or via the internet, and also allows the national herd carcass quality to be easily quantified. Before its introduction there was limited analysis conducted on carcass data and producers found it difficult to assess overall quality. The system now allows producers to quantify the quality of carcasses supplied and compare this with others in the industry. The benefits are evident on individual pig units where changes in slaughter weight, genetics, feeding policy, medication policy have been quantified by using PiGIS.

Application of R&D

SIGMOID PHARMA

Ulcerative colitis is a disease that affects the colon, causing severe inflammation, often requiring that the colon be surgically removed and results in an increased risk of colorectal cancer. The current state of the art therapies include aspirin-like drugs, steroids or antibodies which range from having limited effect to serious side effects and many require administration by injection. The innovation by Sigmoid was to develop a drug product that has significant power but which is administered orally and only released in the colon where it is required. It has been introduced to hospital clinics where it is being tested in patients. On completion of the clinical study, the product will be co-developed with a leading multinational pharmaceutical company.

BLUE BOX SENSORS

Before a new drug can get to market, it has to pass numerous stages including lab and animal pre-clinical testing. Even getting to this stage is costly, and there is an ongoing need for innovations to make the pipeline of drug discovery and validation more efficient. Blue Box Sensors claim to be a significant improvement on microdialysis testing, the current methodology, which relies on sampling brain fluid at different times. Instead, Blue Box Sensors are implantable brain sensors, which are used in the development of new drugs for neurological conditions, to test their efficacy in real time. The sensors offer fresh insight into the workings of the conscious brain and will improve preclinical research and drug discovery for a range of diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Schizophrenia.

MEDTRONIC CARDIOVASCULAR

Medtronic has developed a balloon technology that is a paradigm shift for the angioplasty catheter. Currently all PTCA catheters to date are designed with a balloon that is blow-moulded to the desired dimensions to match the lesion diameter and length. The balloon must then be folded down in order to reduce the profile. Medtronic has developed a balloon that does not require folding (Zerofold balloon). The Zerofold technology allows the balloon to be inflated from a straight tube to a balloon. The advantages include significantly reduced outside diameter/profile with excellent trackability and pushability. Upon deflation, the balloon reforms back into its original tubular shape. No other balloon angioplasty catheter in this market can achieve the low profile of this product due to excessive materials which must be folded down.

Green tech

SOLARPRINT LTD

Solarprint has developed a fully printable, patented Dye Sensitised Solar Cell (DSSC), that it claims is proving to be a highly credible alternative to standard silicon PV. It is fully printable and can be applied to glass, metal or plastic surfaces. This greatly simplifies the manufacturing process and enables high volume roll-to-roll manufacturing in order to produce the lowest cost of any PV technology for generating electricity. The company is currently at advanced stages of collaboration with a number of companies which include an automotive manufacturer, a home appliance and consumer electronics manufacturer, a joint collaboration with major engineering and architectural firms and a project with an international advertising agency.

TREEMETRICS

TreeMetrics is a provider of commercial forestry measurement systems. The system allows for more accurate and cost effective measurement of trees prior to harvesting. The objective of the company is to become the de facto standard of forestry measurement and management worldwide. This is the first time that technology has replaced the calipers in a century of forest measurement. It’s the first system in the world to also measure tree straightness, a key attribute in determining forest value. The products have been developed from scratch in conjunction with three universities – UCC, Oregon State University and Dresden University. TreeMetrics has successfully delivered industrial trial projects in 12 different countries over the past three years, testing and proving that the system works.

EASYDRY LTD

Easydry claims to be the first-ever soft, highly absorbent disposable towel. It is a completely natural product, yet guarantees a robust and absorbent towel through its unique, patented layering system. The Easydry eco-towel is aimed at industries that depend absolutely on a constant supply of clean towels such as hairdressing, beauty and healthcare. Recyclable, biodegradable and made using eco-friendly processes, it can help companies cut their carbon footprint. According to the company, its towels also help the financials as using Easydry eco-towels is 25 per cent cheaper than buying and laundering cotton towels. The Easydry eco-towel was initially envisaged as a consumer product, but it was decided to focus on the hair industry first, to gain a critical mass before marketing to other towel-dependent sectors. More recently, the focus has broadened to include beauty, with healthcare the next step. An Australian division has been opened while in Britain, Easydry has more than 500 salon groups buying hundreds of thousands of eco-towels each month.