The Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) announced a new partnership between Ireland-based company i360medical and
Cleveland Clinic Innovations during a speech at the City Club of Cleveland last week.
The partnership will result in i360medical representing the European wing of the Cleveland Clinic’s Innovation Alliance program -- the corporate venturing arm of the
Cleveland Clinic. The program itself has 52 spinoff companies that have raised approximately $620 million in equity financing, according to Executive Director Chris Coburn.
i360medical bills itself as a medical device innovation company acting as an international and national hub for new healthcare ideas and medical technologies.
Frank Ryan, CEO at
Enterprise Ireland -- a government funded organization tasked with developing and growing Irish companies in world markets, says there are two reasons why they wanted to work with the Cleveland Clinic.
“First of all, innovation. The clinicians here at the Cleveland Clinic are renowned for competence and expertise,” he says. “Secondly, it means exposing Irish companies to those clinicians and the development of new medical device technologies.”
Coburn says the Clinic first linked with Enterprise Ireland in the middle of the last decade. “20 percent of cardiologists in Ireland were trained in Cleveland Clinic,” he says, adding Cleveland’s strong Irish heritage was another building block early on in their relationship. It quickly became clear that Enterprise Ireland was “a perfect fit.”
“We view Enterprise Ireland as an absolute leader in terms of public-private entities looking to stimulate growth,” says Coburn. “This is a very sophisticated operation, and I think a role model for other entities, whether state or county or local, in terms of doing it right.”
Source: Chris Coburn, Frank Ryan, Brian O’Neil
Writer: Joe Baur