Embracing the need for change is a prerequisite for innovation, and Ireland is ready for it
INNOVATION IS ALL about change. If we didn't need change, we wouldn't need innovation. That change could be a need to improve an existing product, or to come up with a new product or process. Sometimes the change we need can be in how we encourage innovation itself. At Sigmoid Pharma, innovation is our raison d'être. Our focus is on finding better therapeutic interventions for a range of diseases, and that includes making medicines easier for patients to take, as well as delivering drugs directly to their targets in the body.
Today Sigmoid focuses on developing innovative products, but our initial focus was on developing a drug-delivery platform that could integrate several delivery technologies and support various types of drugs. We believed this kind of platform would be more powerful, modular, flexible and broadly applicable than existing technologies permitted.
The result has been our innovative SmPill technology. From this, we have developed products and technology platforms, ranging from much needed patient-focused products to treat ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, to removing the need for needles to administer vaccines and biologics.
So how did we do it?
We developed the SmPill technology in-house through the efforts of a team of world class technologists, none of whom share a common technical or educational background, but all of whom share a passion to innovate. To develop and test our prototype products and platforms, we established collaborations with like-minded academic laboratories here and abroad. The resulting progression of products to market would not be possible without close interaction with leading teaching hospitals, mainly in Ireland and the UK.
Since winning the overall 2010 Irish TimesInnovation of the Year Award, Sigmoid has been surfing a wave of momentum. A number of patents have been filed, and clinical and pre-clinical success has led to strong industry interest, which we expect to convert into commercial licensing contracts.
Sigmoid’s success would not have come about without the full support of a number of stakeholders, including the patients who agreed to enter the clinical studies; the gastroenterologists who undertook clinical research; and the investors who have put in about €4 million in the past year alone.
Embracing the need for change is a prerequisite for innovation, and Ireland is ready for it. The recent shift in our political landscape is a barometer of the public need for real change, not change for the sake of change. The mandate could not be clearer: create an environment of change that will allow a change of environment.
And that environment must support innovation in all aspects of Irish life ranging from technology, medical care, agriculture, fisheries and education to culture and how we wish to be perceived nationally and internationally. We already have a base on which to build.
I was a judge in this year's Irish TimesInnovation Award final and the calibre and breadth of all finalists provides assurance that innovation is vibrant here. Irish people have an inherent capacity to innovate in all areas of the increasingly diverse strands that comprise Irish life.
Dr Ivan Coulter is founder and chief executive of Irish biotech firm Sigmoid Pharma, last year's overall winner of the 2010 Irish TimesInnovation of the Year Award