Leading International MedTech Innovators at Med in Ireland 2021

“MedTech’s Big Moment” — under this mot­to, Enter­prise Ire­land, trade and inno­va­tion agency of the Irish gov­ern­ment, had invit­ed to Ire­land’s largest med­ical tech­nol­o­gy event, Med in Ire­land, on Novem­ber 3 and 4. More than 80 lead­ing Irish providers of man­u­fac­tur­ing and health­care solu­tions accept­ed the invi­ta­tion: In more than 300 vir­tu­al meet­ings, they exchanged ideas with inter­na­tion­al buy­ers about the future of healthcare.

Med­ical tech­nol­o­gy is one of the Emer­ald Isle’s great suc­cess sto­ries: 14 out of 15 of the largest med­ical tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies are based in Ire­land, which is why the Repub­lic can count itself among the top five largest medtech cen­ters in the world. With annu­al exports of over €13 bil­lion to more than 100 coun­tries, Ire­land is also the sec­ond largest exporter of med­ical tech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts in Europe. This is also notice­able in terms of employ­ees: Around 45,000 Irish employ­ees work in the indus­try — mak­ing Ire­land the largest per capi­ta employ­er in the med­ical tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor in Europe.

Over 300 virtual 1:1 conversations at Med in Ireland

Even in the Coro­na pan­dem­ic, the medtech indus­try suc­ceed­ed impres­sive­ly in turn­ing chal­lenges into oppor­tu­ni­ties: This was proven by the numer­ous prod­uct inno­va­tions and tech­nolo­gies pre­sent­ed at Med in Ire­land on Novem­ber 3 and 4, under­scor­ing Ire­land’s rep­u­ta­tion as an inno­va­tion dri­ver in the health­care indus­try. In keep­ing with the mot­to “Medtech’s Big Moment,” this year’s Enter­prise Ire­land indus­try meet­ing was ded­i­cat­ed to the future of healthcare.

The focus was on the ques­tion: How are Irish inno­va­tions chang­ing med­ical tech­nol­o­gy in the wake of the pan­dem­ic? In doing so, the goal of the event was to show­case the Irish medtech indus­try and con­nect medtech inno­va­tors from Ire­land with inter­na­tion­al health­care providers. With more than 300 vir­tu­al 1:1 meet­ings, Med in Ire­land impres­sive­ly ful­filled these goals while con­fi­dent­ly defend­ing its title as an attrac­tive nation­al show­case for the entire spec­trum of Irish med­ical tech­nol­o­gy. In total, 80 Irish man­u­fac­tur­ing and health­care solu­tions providers and near­ly 200 buy­ers from more than 40 coun­tries were vir­tu­al­ly on hand — includ­ing guests from the Unit­ed States, Asia, Europe and the Unit­ed Kingdom.

The future of the medtech industry: experts discussed the top 4 key issues

Open­ing the two-day event was Robert Troy, Min­is­ter of State for Trade: “Med in Ire­land is an extreme­ly impor­tant event for inter­na­tion­al health­care providers and man­u­fac­tur­ers to con­nect with the Irish medtech indus­try.” Net­work­ing for the MedTech com­mu­ni­ty began imme­di­ate­ly after­wards with a spe­cial con­fer­ence and pan­el dis­cus­sion fea­tur­ing a num­ber of lead­ing fig­ures from the life sci­ences world. The pro­gram was led by Lor­na Ross, chief inno­va­tion offi­cer at VHI Health & Well­be­ing. She dis­cussed the top­ic with keynote speak­ers Vit­to­rio Morizio, Vice Pres­i­dent of Research and Devel­op­ment at LivaNo­va; Pro­fes­sor George Crooks, Dig­i­tal Health and Care Inno­va­tion Cen­tre; Marie O’Mal­ley, for­mer Senior Direc­tor at Medtron­ic; and Omar Hamadeh, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Bas­sam Trad­ing Com­pa­ny. The focus was on the top 4 key issues shap­ing post-pan­dem­ic health­care: Mar­ket Change, Dig­i­tal­iza­tion, Sup­ply Chain and Sustainability.

Ireland as a trusted source of innovation

At the fore­front of change are a host of Irish tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies in the med­ical field, who pre­sent­ed to inter­na­tion­al guests at Med in Ire­land. For exam­ple, Vita­lo­graph, a glob­al leader in res­pi­ra­to­ry diag­nos­tics and clin­i­cal tri­als, show­cased its remote mon­i­tor­ing solu­tion of lung func­tion and dis­ease. The solu­tions were in par­tic­u­lar­ly high demand at the start of the pan­dem­ic, as they enable self-per­form­ing tests. Data mon­i­tor­ing is also a focus for patientM­pow­er: the medtech inno­va­tor’s tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions make it eas­i­er for peo­ple with long-term con­di­tions to man­age their care, while pro­vid­ing health­care providers with a unique data­base to improve treatments.

Inter­est­ed in one of Ire­land’s man­u­fac­tur­ing and health­care solu­tions providers and want to revis­it the vir­tu­al Med in Ire­land in the after­math? Then stop by Med in Ire­land 2021 Con­fer­ence to learn more about the future of the MedTech scene.

“The health­care sec­tor is very con­ser­v­a­tive and slow to embrace change for good rea­sons. But dur­ing the pan­dem­ic they had no choice but to adapt, and any­thing that could keep peo­ple out of hos­pi­tal or short­en their stay was very wel­come. This has opened up tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ties for change, and Irish com­pa­nies are at the fore­front of that change.”

- Deirdre Glenn, Direc­tor of Lifesciences