Published on: Thursday, 15 May 2014

Radisens Dignostics was one of the high profiles businesses that began in the  highly successful Genesis Enterprise Programme, headquartered at CIT’s Rubicon Centre, Bishopstown Campus, which helped entrepreneurs develop ideas into real exporting businesses.

Radisens Diagnostics has been awarded a second €1m contract by the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop an innovative blood testing device for use by astronauts on board the International Space Station and on various human spaceflight missions. This builds upon their initial partnership announced back in November 2011.

The European Space Agency has contracted Radisens to extend the blood testing menu on their point-of-care device which is currently in development at their facility at the Rubicon Centre, Cork. This forerunner device could be used on board the International Space Station and on various human spaceflight missions where it is essential to get high-performance, laboratory grade results for myriad health conditions, without fear of biological contamination.

Radisens’ CEO, Jerry O’Brien, commented “We are delighted to extend our successful partnership with ESA. The operational needs on board the International Space Station, which requires leading-edge performance, ease-of-use and biological containment, provide Radisens with a unique test-bed for our game-changing point-of-care platform”.

Congratulating the company, Sean Sherlock, TD, Minister for Research and Innovation and the Minister with policy responsibility for space matters said “Radisens is another excellent example of how innovative Irish companies are leveraging the Irish Government’s investment in the European Space Agency. Space is proving to be a very fertile ground for Irish companies in developing innovative technologies and proving the technologies performance in extreme environments. The Radisens example also clearly shows how technologies developed for space can have a major societal impact here on Earth in improving human healthcare. We want to see indigenous companies like Radisens scale up and grow to create jobs here in Ireland, and winning internationally benchmarked contracts like this will help them achieve this.”

ESA’s Technical Officer, Francois Gaubert, added “Performing rapid analysis of astronauts’ blood samples and monitoring their physiological parameters onboard the ISS without having to download the samples from the ISS to the ground laboratories is a feature with utmost interest that the RADISENS POC proposes to develop.”

Tony McDonald, Enterprise Ireland pointed to Radisens as one of a growing number of Irish companies which are looking to ESA to support their product and market development strategies. The partnership with ESA is proving to be highly beneficial to Irish companies in supporting technology development, product reliability and performance and in providing a globally recognised reference customer.

About Radisens Diagnostics

Radisens Diagnostics, a venture-backed diagnostics company, is breaking new ground in the decentralization of routine blood testing from central reference laboratories into physician offices, outpatient clinics, hospital bedsides and other point-of-care settings. With a finger-prick of blood, this multi-mode diagnostic device will return laboratory-grade results within minutes during a patient’s physician visit.

Radisens’ initial applications will concentrate on test panels to provide clinical benefits for more efficient chronic disease management. A single sample-to-result analyzer, this IP protected platform will provide a step improvement in blood test performance, and will remove the many anxious days or weeks of waiting for routine blood test results, provide better patient outcomes and introduce much needed efficiencies into healthcare systems worldwide.

About Enterprise Ireland and the European Space Agency

The European Space Agency (ESA) is the intergovernmental organisation that promotes co-operation among European States in space research and technology and their space applications for scientific purposes and for operational space applications systems. Ireland’s membership of ESA permits Irish companies and research teams to bid for ESA contract development work in a range of space programmes.

Enterprise Ireland is the Irish body responsible for co-ordinating Ireland’s industrial and research participation in the programmes of ESA. Its role is to assist Irish companies to successfully bid for ESA contracts. Enterprise Ireland provides a source of expertise for Irish companies in developing and executing space strategies, Irish industrial participation is primarily in the engineering, aerospace, software, electronics, optoelectronics and telecommunications sectors.

The level of spin off export sales (including direct ESA contracts) from Irish investment in ESA is estimated at €50m in 2013 and projected to grow substantially as the number of Irish companies securing ESA contract continues to expand, and as existing Irish ESA contractors progress from intensive R&D phase to commercial exploitation phase.