Research & Innovation

As part of the 18-company shortlist announced for this year’s Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation Awards, three University College Dublin (UCD) spin-out companies have been highlighted as recent success stories.

Now in its fifth year, the awards looks at companies that have made significant strides researching and developing new products in the fields of agrifood, bioscience, creative industry, energy and the environment, IT and telecommunications, and manufacturing.

There will be some stiff competition as the 18 companies battle it out for the attention of The Irish Times’ readers, as each category winner receives a €10,000 communications package in Monday’s The Irish Times Business and Innovation pages.

The awards has seen a number of the overall winners go on to develop innovations as diverse as drug-delivery systems and state-of-the art network switching, to anti-allergy pillows and new technologies for cleaning and disinfecting.
Highly regarded start-ups

The three UCD spin-out companies that have been highlighted include APC Ltd (bioscience), Equilume Ltd (bioscience), and OxyMem Ltd (energy and the environment).

Shortlisted APC provides streamlined chemical engineering solutions and technologies to large and small pharmaceutical companies. The firm won the NovaUCD 2011 Start-Up Company of the Year Award and has since gone on to employ a total of 30 people at UCD and is actively seeking to employ an additional 15-20 staff members over the next two years.

OxyMem Ltd, which has developed a breakthrough technology for waste-water aeration, was co-founded in 2013 by Prof Eoin Casey and Dr Eoin Syron as spin-out from UCD’s School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering.

The most recent UCD spin-out in 2012, Equilume Ltd, has developed a light therapy solution to assist global thoroughbred breeders to maximise the reproductive efficiency and performance of their horses.

Other finalists include Komodomath, a learning app for helping children aged 5 to 11 master basic mathematics from its database of more than 60,000 questions. The Belfast start-up was founded last year and has been well-received by a number of parents.

(Left to right) Wayne Byrne, CEO with Oxymem Ltd co-founders Dr Eoin Syron and ProfEoin Casey, UCD School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering