BiancaMed Wins an Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation Award

BiancaMed, the medical technology company, has won an inaugural Irish Times All-island Innovation Award in association with InterTradeIreland. BiancaMed was presented with the Product/Service Innovation Category Award, sponsored by UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, for its breakthrough wireless sensor technology for the non-contact monitoring of sleep and breathing in the home. The Award was presented to the company at a gala awards ceremony held last week in the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Kilmainham.

BiancaMed Irish Times Innovation Award
Dr Philip De Chazal and Dr Conor Hanley, co-founders BiancaMed with Paul Haran, Chairman, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School

BiancaMed has developed and is marketing SleepMinder™, an accurate, contactless and convenient device for the measurement of sleep and breathing in the home. The core of BiancaMed’s proprietary technology is a sensitive radio frequency motion sensor that can detect respiration and movement without being connected to the human body. The sensor incorporates sophisticated biometric software that converts the motion data into a measurement of sleep.

BiancaMed, founded in 2003, currently employs over 20 people and is headquartered in NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre at UCD. The SleepMinder™ technology was initially developed at UCD's School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering by Professor Conor Heneghan and Dr Philip de Chazal.

On winning the Award, Dr Conor Hanley, BiancaMed co-founder and CEO said, “We are delighted to have won this prestigious Award and for BiancaMed to be recognised as an innovative company, which originated from research undertaken at UCD, selling products in the global marketplace.” He added, “We have a fantastic and expanding team at BiancaMed driving innovation and developing a suite of products using our proprietary technology.”

Last year BiancaMed secured an additional €6 million in funding led by pan-European venture capital firm Seventure Partners with existing investors ePlanet Ventures, Enterprise Ireland and ResMed.

BiancaMed, which also has an office in Sunnyvale, California, is currently working with several major corporations to launch a range of consumer products in 2010 and 2011. This includes a baby monitor which uses a motion sensor to monitor a baby’s sound, movement and sleep. In addition, BiancaMed is developing a sleep apnoea diagnostic product and the company has launched a sleep monitoring service.

Designed to recognise the best innovations in businesses across the island of Ireland, the awards were open to indigenous and international companies of all sizes, operating throughout the island.   Over 120 companies entered the six categories of the competition.  Seventeen of these were then shortlisted for the awards by a judging panel, before the final winners were selected. The panel included some of the island’s senior business leaders, including Liam Nellis, Chief Executive, InterTradeIreland; Liam Kavanagh, Managing Director, The Irish Times; Paul Rellis, Managing Director, Microsoft Ireland; Barry Maloney, Founding Partner, Balderton Capital; and Karlin Lillington, Technology Correspondent, Irish Times.

InTime Media and Mcor Technologies were the other shortlisted companies in the Product/Service innovation category along with BiancaMed.

The six category winners of the inaugural Irish Times and InterTradeIreland Innovation Awards were:

The overall winner of the Inaugural Irish times All Island Innovation Awards in association with InterTradeIreland was Sigmoid Pharma who won a marketing communications package worth in excess of €200,000.

ENDS

30 March 2010

For further information contact Micéal Whelan, NovaUCD, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie, t: +353 (0)1 716 3712.

Editor’s Notes

BiancaMed is an Irish medical technology company. BiancaMed has developed a contactless, accurate device for the measurement of sleep and breathing in the home setting. Major shareholders include Enterprise Ireland, DFJ ePlanet Ventures, ResMed and Seventure.  The core of BiancaMed’s proprietary technology is a sensitive motion sensor that can detect respiration and movement without being connected to the human body. The sensor incorporates sophisticated biometric software that converts the motion data into measurements of sleep and breathing.

NovaUCD is University College Dublin’s Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre.  NovaUCD is responsible for the commercialisation of intellectual property arising from UCD research and for the development of co-operation with the industry and business communities. NovaUCD as a purpose-built incubation centre also nurtures new technology and knowledge-intensive enterprises. Twenty-seven knowledge-intensive companies, including BiancaMed, are currently located in NovaUCD.  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.