Watch – Industry 4.0 in Healthcare: Future Trends and Best Practice for SMEs
On 15 March, the Whitaker Institute in collaboration with InterTradeIreland and the Western Development Commission, were delighted to host a virtual panel event on industry 4.0 in the healthcare sector. The panel event, which was part of the All-Island Innovation Programme that aims to disseminate thought leadership and best practice on innovation to SMEs, discussed future trends across the healthcare field – diagnosis, therapeutics and manufacturing. The two panellists gave insights into technological trends occurring given their areas of specialisation, and significantly, how SMEs can effectively engage with industry 4.0 and strengthen their capacity to do so.
The panel speakers are:
Dr Hugh Cormican is CEO of Cirdan, headquartered in Northern Ireland and is a leading provider of informatics software and imaging solutions to enhance and speed up the diagnosis of patients. Cirdan’s systems increase efficiency in clinical laboratories. More recently, Cirdan has added digital pathology education software to its portfolio and enhanced its digital pathology and artificial intelligence capabilities. Hugh will provide insights on how the exponential growth in data and integration of smart sensing is likely to affect the area of clinical laboratory testing.
Professor Mary Murphy is a Principal Investigator at REMEDI, NUI Galway in the area of regenerative medicine. Her research interests focus on the biology of stem cells and the development of innovative medicines. Autostem and Autocrat are EU-funded projects that Mary leads, which focus on the sustainable production of therapeutic cells in a reliable and cost-effective way. More specifically, through these projects Mary’s research focuses on creating a production line for stem cells: a regenerative medicine factory for cost-effective, controlled automated manufacturing of products combining cell production, robotics and process control. Mary will provide insights from this research on therapeutics.
The panel was chaired by Dr Majella Giblin who is a lecturer in the School of Business & Economics at NUI Galway. Her main area of research is the evolution of the medical technology ecosystem in Galway including the development of capabilities in MNE subsidiaries and start-ups in the region. Majella also recently contributed to the compilation of a Seanad report (published May 2019) on a strategy to support the development of SMEs in Ireland.