In March 2020, SymPhysis Medical were named as finalists in the annual Futurescope One2Watch competition.

FutureScope is Ireland’s leading business innovation event, and the One2Watch competition seeks to find Ireland’s most scalable business idea and award the winning company with a prize worth €10k, including a platform to support its growth

The Futurescope event takes place at the Convention Centre Dublin later in 2020 and explores the implications of emerging technologies, featuring keynotes and multiple panel discussions exploring the challenges and opportunities arising from IoT, MedTech, robotics, 5G, VR/AR, artificial intelligence and more.

With over 120 applications for FutureScope’s One2Watch, a number of factors came into play when deciding the final five spots including, market size, innovation and potential to scale. Not an easy task says judge Heidi Corr, “With the five finalists, we are seeing the application of emerging technologies across multiple business sectors, all of which could achieve global scale. With strong value propositions and a high level of innovation and disruption demonstrated by the finalists, I am very excited to see who will be crowned FutureScope’s One2Watch 2020.”

The IBYE competition, now in its fifth year, is a nationwide youth enterprise initiative to support 18-to-35 year olds with an innovative business idea, new start-up or established business. In 2019, 1,644 young entrepreneurs entered IBYE, which is an initiative of the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and supported by Enterprise Ireland and local authorities.

Michelle Tierney of SymPhysis Medical won the ‘Best New Idea’ category in the Clare competition, winning a €7,000 investment fund.  SymPhysis Medical is an innovative medical device for treating cancer patients suffering from fluid build-up around the lung and aims to improve patients’ quality of life and reduce healthcare costs.

In the lead-up to the county final, each finalist received targeted business supports through Local Enterprise Office Clare. They attended an intensive Business Boot Camp, receiving mentoring and support on their business plans, and pitch training.

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In November, the SymPhysis Medical team completed one of the most successful startup incubators in the world, YES!Delft Validation Lab. The Validation Lab is an eight-week pressure cooker to support early-stage start-ups to identify their market potential. The goal is to find the product-market fit and to launch in markets across Europe.

During the program the SymPhysis Medical team met influential clinicians across Europe, covering areas such as Erlangen in Germany, Copenhagen in Denmark and Barcelona in Spain. Discovering how each of the healthcare systems operate and creating relationships within the diverse ecosystems was key to the learnings from the program.

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SymPhysis Medical will be collaborating with Dr. Conor Judge, a Wellcome Trust-Health Research Board ICAT Fellow and Nephrology Specialist Registrar, to investigate the commercial feasibility of an innovative peritoneal dialysis catheter anchoring system in Ireland and in international markets.

Dr. Conor Judge was a finalist in the Enterprise Ireland Cleveland Clinic Clinical Innovator Award and has been awarded a €15,000 Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Feasibility Fund for the project. The Clinical Innovation Award is designed to support clinicians and other healthcare professionals in Ireland to explore the commercial feasibility of innovative ideas and the potential to transform the way medical care is delivered in Ireland and abroad.

SymPhysis Medical are currently incorporating the anchoring system into a novel indwelling pleural catheter for the treatment of malignant pleural effusions. The collaboration with Dr. Conor Judge will explore the feasibility of applying the innovative anchoring system to peritoneal dialysis catheters for the reduction of peritoneal dialysis related infections.

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The Health Service Executive in Ireland has outlined that one of the major challenges relating to palliative care is the growing demand for services due to the ageing population.

Given that the incidence of cancer in Ireland is estimated to double by 2040, this has the potential to put significant strain on palliative care resources if innovative measures that can ease the burden are not implemented.

During clinical immersion conducted in hospitals in Ireland and the Mayo Clinic in the US the SymPhysis Medical team used a ‘needs-based’ approach to innovation to identify that there was a significant unmet clinical need in relation to the treatment of malignant pleural effusion (MPE)

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