Devices conference: Ireland lags behind other countries in the development of medical devices when it comes to making good ideas a reality. An initiative launched at a recent conference hopes to overcome the problems and make Ireland a world leader in the medical device field.
We are already significant players in this market, according to Sharon Higgins, director of the Irish Medical Devices Association (IMDA).
The key now is to ensure business growth by improving the convergence of research, clinical practice and engineering, says Higgins.
A new framework has been developed to help achieve the convergence she describes, where good ideas or problems proposed by clinicians can quickly move through a research phase and into manufacturing in the shortest possible time.
The medical device sector in Ireland employed 22,000 directly and a further 14,000 indirectly in 2003, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
The sector as a whole produces exports worth €4 billion a year.
"The bottom line is we have the capacity and we have to develop it further," according to Higgins. "To move to the next stage of innovation we have to cross link these three areas," she believes.
To help this along the IMDA organised a two-day conference last week entitled, "Innovation Island II".
It used the conference to launch "Medical Technologies Vision 2020", an initiative designed to make Ireland a world leader in medical device innovation within the next 15 years.
"This is something we have been working on since last summer," she says.
The new framework started with a meeting involving doctors, research academics and industry representatives who volunteered for a brainstorming session.
"We almost had a lock in," says Higgins. "It was like voting for the pope."
Achieving the convergence goal will be a challenge however, according to Galway-based Medtronic Vascular's research manager, Dr Barry Dolan. Ireland is lucky to have a culture that supports innovation, he says, but this doesn't readily convert into products.
"What we have to focus on now is to convert research into real products," says Dr Dolan.
Ian Quinn of Creganna Medical Devices of Galway agrees. "We know the recipe, we have the ingredients, we put them in the pot but the cake hasn't risen," he says.
Many of his company's clients are start-up companies from abroad that deliver a "huge flow of innovative ideas", he says.
"In Ireland we are just not getting enough innovative ideas."