Chasing med-tech success is a shore thing in Tramore

Louise Grubb was born and raised in Waterford. Though a high-flying career took her to Dublin and Kilkenny, when the time came to exercise her entrepreneurial ambition, it was to Waterford that she returned.

Grubb started out studying nutrition and dietetics at Trinity College Dublin, rounding out her education with an MBS from Dublin City University and a marketing qualification from the Marketing Institute. It culminated in a job with a major multinational Cow & Gate Nutricia, where she quickly rose up the ranks.

It was the early days of nutraceuticals, the concept of so-called functional foods, those with health-giving additives, which was gaining traction in human healthcare. As an animal-lover married to a vet, Grubb spotted a gap in the market for similar product line for animals.

She undertook a small clinical trial and encouraged by the results launched NutriScience, a developer and manufacturer of wellness products for animals that, in 2009, became part of SwedenCare, one of Europe’s biggest veterinary pharmaceutical companies.

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Following that successful exit she founded Q1 Scientific, a provider of storage and sample management services to the pharmaceutical and medical device industry.

Along the way she set-up and hosted a popular podcast series, The Science of Business, sharing insights from her start-up experiences to help inspire others. She joined the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award’s alumni board and chairs Tangent, Trinity College Dublin’s enterprise and innovation hub.

Since 2018 she has also been a member of the board of the Port of Waterford, the cargo gateway of her beloved south-east.

Now set to surpass all of this is TriviumVet, the company she founded, along with Tom Brennan, in 2015 to bridge treatment gaps she identified in the health care of companion animals – the cats and dogs that complete our families.

Having come through its clinical trials period, the start-up is poised to launch its first drug, for heart disease in cats, in the USA, her initial target market. It will be swiftly followed by an innovative new treatment for pain in dogs. The company has a full range of further products in the pipeline.

Waterford – the secret sauce

Locating in Waterford has played a key role in all of her business success to date, she reckons. A range of local factors, from the lower cost of housing to access to South East Technological University (SETU), have contributed to TriviumVet’s progress too.

“I’ve pulled together a very experienced research and development team here in Waterford comprising vets, pharmacists, chemists, physiologists and quality control experts, a key skill in a regulated area like this,” the winner of Image PwC businesswoman of the year 2023 award explains.

Good transport links and broadband connectivity are vital to the startup, which works with top vets and animal cardiologists all over the world, as well as animal health experts in American universities such as University of California Davis and North Carolina State University.

For Grubb, being able to scale the business from Waterford was not just a good business decision, but a good personal one too.

“I grew up by the sea in Tramore and always had a yearning to get back to it. Even though I lived in Dublin and Kilkenny for a number of years, I always thought I’d get back,” she explains.

Five years ago she managed to achieve that childhood wish, moving her family into what she happily describes as her dream house, high on a clifftop from where she can see the white horses of the waves roll into Tramore Bay.

Hers is a family of animal lovers, including husband John Brennan, a vet and breeder of showjumpers, and their two adult daughters, both of whom went to school in Tramore.

One is now a doctor and the other works in high finance in London. “In Waterford you don’t have that thing you have in Dublin where people ask ‘Where did you go to school?’. The kids all go to the local school, it’s much simpler and more straightforward,” she says.

For TriviumVet to succeed, she knew it needed to attract highly skilled professionals to come and work for it, always a challenge for a start-up. Indeed, securing talent is a key challenge for all employers but especially those operating at the leading edge of science. In this respect the business’s location has been its secret weapon.

“Over the past 20 years Waterford has successfully attracted very many pharmaceutical companies to the area, giving it critical mass. That makes it easier to attract talent to a start-up, which is traditionally hard to do. It’s a lot easier to do now than it was when I first started out, because people know now that if a job doesn’t work-out, there are loads of other opportunities within a 30-mile radius,” she explains.

Quality of life

Waterford is also such a nice place to live, she adds. Of the 14 people she employs, four are from Waterford and the rest have moved to the county with their families from all around the country. “Some live in Tramore, some in Dunmore East and some in Waterford city. These are 30-somethings with kids who love the fact that they can leave work at 5pm and be on a beach, or walking Mount Congreve, or up at Mahon Falls in the Comeragh Mountains in minutes,” she says.

While the county is scenic the city is pleasantly compact. It boasts a thriving arts and culture sector. “For kids there is every kind of sport you like and great music schools like the Waterford Academy of Music and Arts (WAMA). And while there has been an increase in the cost of housing here it is still comfortably less than places like Dublin. You can get a nice three or four-bedroom family home here for €350,000 and so much more for your money,” she adds.

Travel is a central part of her working week and here too she reckons Waterford scores well. “Although it’s not possible to fly direct to the USA from Waterford, it is just an hour and a half drive to Dublin airport and you can clear immigration there which is absolutely terrific. It makes things much faster than if I were to go via the UK, for example,” she explains.

“If I’ve meetings in Dublin I take the train, which is two hours of reading and writing and generally getting things done.”

World class in Waterford

In an industry dominated by major multinationals, TriviumVet stands on the cusp of international success, a credit to its small but highly talented team.

“We are punching above our weight. The most important thing for all of us now is to get our first product launched in the USA. When we do so it will be the first treatment of its kind in the world and there is a huge sense of pride for all of us in that,” she says.

“I’m so proud of the really highly qualified people that have come to work with my start up. Part of the reason I have been able to attract them is because Waterford is just such a comfortable place to live.”

Read more here if you think you might want to set up business in Co Waterford