The life sciences sector, which includes pharmaceutical and medical device makers, is one of the few shining lights in our ravaged economy, writes RONAN McGREEVY
IN THE car crash that has become the Irish economy, there is one sector that has held its own and is helping to keep the country from financial meltdown.
This year exports are expected to reach €155 billion, a 1 per cent increase on 2008 and a commendable performance when so many other export-led countries, such as Japan and Germany, appear to be struggling.
Ireland has kept up its share of exports primarily because our life sciences sector, which includes pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, is operating in a market that has been remarkably resilient and, in the main, recession-proof.
The growth is most impressive in the indigenous life science sector, which has doubled in size in the past five years and will shortly become a €1 billion industry, although it is still significantly smaller than the massive multinational sector operating in Ireland.
This year it is expected to record growth of about 10 per cent, the fifth successive year of double-digit expansion. Last year, as the recession began to bite and Ireland underwent an economic implosion, it still managed to record growth of 22 per cent.
Last week, more than 50 Irish medical device manufacturers held their bi-annual Med in Ireland exhibition and conference, sponsored by Enterprise Ireland, at Croke Park. Among the exhibitors were home-grown success stories such as Creganna, SteriPack and Crospon.
The presence of so many international buyers, about 200 in total including some from as far away as Japan, China and Australia, was testament to the burgeoning success of the medical devices sector.
Enterprise Ireland is hoping the event will generate in excess of the €35 million worth of business which resulted after it was last held in 2007.
The medical devices and diagnostics industry in Ireland employs 25,000 people and generates €6 billion in revenue. It is still dominated by the large multinationals such as Boston Scientific, Stryker and Medronic, but a legion of indigenous firms have now begun to make their mark. Many of them are based in Co Galway which is home to the largest medical devices manufacturing cluster in the world outside the US.
It is an unsung story, according to Christopher Coburn, the executive director of innovations at the Cleveland Clinic, one of America’s most pre-eminent medical facilities.
The clinic signed a memorandum of understanding with the Royal College of Surgeons last year to develop and commercialise new medical devices.
“The US press love to spot trends. There have been articles about how bad the Irish economy is , but being at this conference sends an entirely different message about what is happening here,” he said before his address at Med in Ireland last week.
He described Ireland’s strategy to build an indigenous medical devices sector around multinationals as “brilliantly executed”.
“We believe that future healthcare is in innovation, whether it is the ability to help more patients, to anticipate the demographic changes or control costs,” he explained.
“Innovation is important, you need to be in it for the long term. You have got a great model emerging in Ireland. The conference was a tangible demonstration about how vibrant the medical sector is in Ireland. There is a lot happening. It is impressive.”
He cited one example of how the Irish medical devices industry is becoming a world leader. When his office went looking for a worldwide partner to develop a catheter delivery system, they used Cambus Medical based in Spiddle, Co Galway.
Mr Coburn said life sciences in general, but medical devices in particular, had been resilient despite the recession because people always need medical procedures.
Because of the global financial crisis there is also a desire to drive down costs, particularly in the US, which in turn is driving the need for innovation.
“In most areas of medicine, half of the worldwide activities is in the United States as a rule of thumb,” he explained.
“At the moment, the medical sector in the US is flourishing. It is an oasis in the US economy that has been, in many parts, a barren desert. I have no problem in believing that the Irish industry, as a subset of the worldwide medical industry, would be doing this well.”
The Royal College of Surgeons set up the Colles Institute last year to use the expertise of surgeons and clinicians to develop better medical instrumentation.
The Cleveland Clinic and the RCS have a number of projects in train although nothing has come to fruition just yet. They are planning to move together on Notes (Natural Orifice Translumenal Endoscopic Surgery) or so-called “scarless surgery” in the New Year. “We think there will be great benefits for both parties,” he said.
Prof Oscar Traynor, director of the National Surgical Training Centre at the Royal College of Surgeons, said they had set up the Colles Institute to bridge the gap between the experiences of surgeons and medical device manufacturers.
It consists of the National Surgical Training Centre (NSTC), the Centre for Innovation in Surgical Technology (CIST) and The Centre for Research and Development (CRD).
“The strange thing is that in Ireland, we have a very strong medical training background and we have a very strong medical devices industry, but at the present time, it is like we both work in different silos. There is a barrier between surgeons and the medical device industry,” he told the conference.
The Colles Institute is hoping that ideas for new medical devices generated by surgeons and clinicians who are at the coalface of medical procedures can be made into working prototypes and eventually into devices that, after extensive testing, can be licenced, patented and then commercialised.
Enterprise Ireland’s life sciences markets manager, Brian O’Neill, said the medical devices’ sector was a success story which provided a template for the smart economy that the Government has been promoting to get Ireland out of the severe economic difficulties in which it finds itself.
Moreover, it is not an industry that can go to the lowest cost economies like so many other manufacturing facilities.
“Without regulatory approval, you cannot market or sell a device anywhere. Given the strength of our regulatory systems here, it is very hard to relocate that elsewhere.”
