In this feature, Cois Coiribe is delighted to share the insights of Professor Abhay Pandit, Established Professor of Biomaterials at University of Galway and the Founding Director of CÚRAM, the Research Ireland Centre for Medical Devices. Prof Pandit discusses the programme and its significant impact, including its fostering of direct applications and development of breakthrough medical devices. He demystifies CÚRAM and its crucial contribution to MedTech in the West of Ireland and beyond.
Addressing chronic disease to support healthy ageing is one of the most pressing public health and economic challenges of our time. The CÚRAM Research Ireland Centre for Medical Devices, a collaboration between ten research institutions across the island of Ireland, maintains a core objective to “support the human experience of illness, chronic pain and ageing from birth to end of life by developing innovative medical devices”. Established in 2015, the Centre has since emerged as a global leader in medical device research, fostering collaboration between academia, industry, patients, healthcare professionals, and funders. It is committed to enhancing quality of life for individuals afflicted with chronic illnesses. To achieve this, our scientific programme addresses significant issues, technical hurdles, and the existing limitations pertaining to medical device design and functionalisation. Together, we catalyse innovation in the medical devices sector with a strong foothold in fundamental science and engineering.
CÚRAM recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, and it continuously works with industry donors, foundations, and philanthropists to harness the power of its cross-sector community. In developing this brain trust of expert funders, CÚRAM’s clinicians and researchers are sustainably resourced in an environment that is inspiring, fast-paced, innovative and entrepreneurial. In 2024, we were able to report a 12-fold return on investment over our ten years of operation. Our present value to the Irish economy is calculated to be €756 million, building on a decade of public investment, with an initial seed fund of €64.8 million through Research Ireland, formerly Science Foundation Ireland.
Here in Galway, in the West of Ireland, we are embedded in an incredibly strong and innovative MedTech ecosystem, which we aim to continue contributing to. Our efforts thus far have secured over €10 million for Irish industry collaborators through successful EU funding applications, enabling strategic long-term academic–industry–clinician relationships.
In terms of industry, CÚRAM offers new product introduction, device scalability, and conformance with medical device standards. Additionally, we facilitate favourable licensing terms and conditions alongside strict scientific and financial reporting structures. In this way, we ensure that new technologies progress from research to real-world medical applications, driving patient care and medical device advancements, such as pain-alleviation devices, scar-preventing implants, next-generation of neuroelectrodes, degenerated-disc repair devices, and inflammatory bowel disease treating devices.
We know the value of education within the MedTech ecosystem. We support Teachers in Residence, and to date there has been dedicated training of over 400 primary and secondary teachers all over Ireland, with more than 8,500 students reached. Notably, there have been 14 curriculum-linked lesson plan kits co-created and evaluated. We embrace the input of industry partners, such as Boston Scientific and Medtronic, taking advantage of our progressive online platform. It’s been an honour to see artists, researchers, teachers, and school children designing murals inspired by CÚRAM’s research, and we are delighted to continue our partnership with Óide, providing interdisciplinary STEAM CPD workshops to secondary school teachers. It’s these activities that reach the community directly and create a lasting a positive feedback loop.
The Centre passionately connects the patient voice with the combined expertise and technologies of Ireland’s leading scientists. These include clinicians and engineers from our partner universities, as well as international industry partners. Our research is shaped and guided by the invaluable perspectives of people with lived experience of chronic illness. As result of this effort, our outputs particularly benefit patients with chronic health issues, such as cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, neural, soft tissue, renal and urology, and respiratory diseases.
CÚRAM’s research expertise spans biomedical engineering and sciences that include device design, integrating cutting-edge nanotechnology, microelectronics, soft robotics, and biosensor systems. These elements combine to develop devices that offer real-time health monitoring and therapeutic interventions. For example, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine use advanced biomaterials and stem cell technologies, addressing critical needs in chronic disease management and complex tissue repair.
There is increased and widespread use of medical devices in healthcare, but conversely there is a lack of optimal clinical trial designs, with no clear pathways for safe and effective use of new devices. We have a dedicated translational research platform at CÚRAM that works to enhance clinical study methods for medical devices. It focuses on biostatistics, health economics, regulatory analyses, and critical evaluation of study design to effectively translate fundamental concepts and designs into clinical use. In collaboration with the Health Research Board Clinical Research Facility Galway (HRB CRFG), experts in this area accelerate the translation of medical device projects and provide structured support for CÚRAM projects approaching clinical evaluations.
People are at the centre of what we do. It is the talent of our researchers that allows us to have far-reaching impact. Ireland is one of the top employers of MedTech professionals in Europe, and this is thanks to our rich talent pool of third-level graduates and our dynamic supports for upskilling. Training programmes like those at CÚRAM are a hugely valuable component in our drive to create diverse and best-in-class talent. This is how we enable the future success and competitiveness of MedTech in Ireland.
CÚRAM’s networks offer high-quality training, positively influencing the talent pipeline and adding significantly to Ireland’s research infrastructure. We ensure an interdisciplinary approach is embedded in these programmes and support the new mission of Research Ireland, the first objective of which is “[to] promote the attainment and maintenance of excellence in the standard and quality of research and innovation”.
It’s through these fantastic experiences for young researchers across CÚRAM that our built investment grows and strengthens our long-term impact in the MedTech field. By way of meaningful collaborative opportunities between researchers and public audiences, we create better understanding, input, and awareness of CÚRAM’s research. The programme carries an importance in and for society, and it provides an avenue for researchers to symbiotically understand the needs of our society in a personal and meaningful way.
This is the way forward, and this is the way we can ultimately increase the impact and value of our work for patients and their lives.
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