Celtic Catalysts the University College Dublin life science spin-out company has won a 2011 Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation Award. At the awards ceremony, held in the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, the company was declared the winner of the Application of R&D category.
Celtic Catalysts, an innovative venture capital backed life sciences company, has developed ground-breaking chemistry that enables its end-user clients in the pharmaceutical, biotech and fine chemicals industries to realise significant manufacturing cost savings. The company’s technology and products are currently integrated into the manufacture of a number of potential blockbuster drugs currently in development by major well-known pharmaceutical companies.
Pictured at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dr Brian Kelly, CEO & Co-founder, Celtic Catalysts
Celtic Catalysts, who list 2001 Nobel Prize Winner Barry Sharpless as the chairman of its Scientific Advisory Board, is headquartered in NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre. It was co-founded in 2000 by Professor Declan Gilheany and Dr Brian Kelly as a spin-out from UCD’s School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. The company is continuing to expand both its research & development operations in Dublin and its UK production facility which it opened in 2009.
Dr Brian Kelly, co-founder & CEO said, “Receiving this award is a great recognition of the hard-work and dedication of everyone associated with Celtic Catalysts. It is also tremendous validation of an Irish company’s achievement in attracting a cosmopolitan team of highly- skilled individuals to Ireland, developing world-leading technology here and using this technology to compete on a global basis.”
This latest award follows a number of awards received by the company and its founders in recent years including, the Thistle Biotech International Rising Star Award (2008), the NovaUCD Innovation Award (2008) and the Shell LiveWire Entrepreneur of the Year Regional Winner (2006).
The other companies shortlisted in the application of R&D category included another UCD spin-out company Equinome and RealView Manufacturing.
Now in its second year, the Irish Times InterTradeIreland All-island Innovation Awards aim to recognise and promote the best service, product or operational innovations throughout the island. Over 120 companies entered the seven categories of the competition. Twenty-one of these were then shortlisted for the awards by a judging panel, before the final winners were selected.
Commenting on the awards, Liam Nellis, Chief Executive of InterTradeIreland and Chair of the Innovation Awards final judging panel said, “Despite the economic situation, we have been extremely encouraged by the level and diversity of innovations represented by our finalists and winners. Not only do they have strong ideas and innovative processes, crucially, they are market-led and market-focused. I’m delighted that these awards have managed to achieve exactly what they set out to do, which is to showcase the best examples of innovation on the island.”At the Awards evening InTune Networks was presented with the overall Innovation of the Year Award.
The final judging panel for the event included Colm Long, Facebook, Liam Nellis InterTradeIreland, Peter Callan, The Irish Times Group, Michael Carey, Jacob Fruitfield Food Group, Tim Cody, Accenture, Ivan Coulter, Sigmoid Pharma and Deirde Terrins, Crescent Capital.
Click here for further information, including videos, on all the shortlisted companies.
ENDS
4 March 2011
For further information contact Micéal Whelan, NovaUCD, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie, t: +353 1 716 3712.
Editors Notes
Celtic Catalysts is the leading supplier of chiral products and manufacturing services to the Pharmaceutical, Fine Chemical & Biotechnology industries. As developers of the world’s leading asymmetric hydrogenation catalyst it has the skills, technology and experience to solve chiral challenges and synthesize chiral intermediates at any scale in the fastest possible time at the lowest manufacturing cost. The company, headquartered in NovaUCD and with facilities in the UK, was co-founded in 2000 by Professor Declan Gilheany and Dr Brian Kelly as a spin-out from UCD’s School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.
NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre, is the hub of knowledge transfer activities at University College Dublin. NovaUCD is responsible for the commercialisation of intellectual property arising from UCD research and for the development of co-operation with industry and business. NovaUCD as a purpose-built centre also nurtures new technology and knowledge-intensive enterprises such as Celtic Catalysts and Equinome. NovaUCD has been funded through a unique public-private partnership that includes AIB Bank, Arthur Cox, Deloitte, Enterprise Ireland, Ericsson, Goodbody Stockbrokers, UCD and Xilinx.