The recipients of University College Dublin’s (UCD) annual innovation awards, which highlight successes made in areas of knowledge transfer, consultancy, entrepreneurship and the promotion of an innovation culture, by members of the UCD research, innovation and entrepreneurial community, have been announced today by NovaUCD.
A total of 7 Awards were presented by Professor Orla Feely, President, UCD during an event held in the UCD University Club.
Among the Awards presented were the Spin-out of the Year, Invention of the Year and the Innovation Champion of the Year.
Speaking at the event Professor Orla Feely, UCD, President, said, “UCD is committed to delivering impact from our leading research and innovation across a broad range of disciplines. The NovaUCD Innovation Awards, which have become a key annual event, recognise the achievements of our research, innovation and entrepreneurial communities and demonstrate our strength in developing talent and creating and applying knowledge to deliver impact.
I congratulate all who have received this year’s Awards and wish the Awardees every future success as they continue to deliver impact in Ireland and further afield through their commercialisation, consultancy, entrepreneurial and innovation activities.”
LaNua Medical was named recipient of the 2025 NovaUCD Spin-out of the Year Award.
LaNua Medical is developing a groundbreaking medical device designed to make minimally invasive, x-ray guided, endovascular treatment of numerous conditions including internal bleeding, vascular malformations and many benign and malignant tumours safe and effective. This should make procedures quicker and more straightforward for operators, providing a cost-effective solution for healthcare systems and lead to consistent outcomes for patients.
The company was co-founded in 2024 by Dr Cormac Farrelly, UCD School of Medicine, Dr Eoin O’Cearbhaill and Sajjad Amiri, UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering along with Tom Fitzmaurice, formerly a Vice-President at Medtronic, following the completion of an Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund research project at the University.
On receiving the 2025 NovaUCD Spin-out of the Year Award, Dr Cormac Farrelly, co-founder, LaNua Medical, said, “As an Interventional Radiologist over the last 2 decades, I have witnessed first-hand how technological advances in minimally invasive x-ray guided endovascular treatments have led to powerful patient benefits. Twenty-five years after graduating from UCD’s medical school it is an honour to be part of the winning team of this year’s NovaUCD Spin-out of the Year Award. Without the support of NovaUCD and Enterprise Ireland we would not now find ourselves in such an exciting position.”
LaNua Medical’s pioneering device named ECORE™ will help to modernize embolization procedures, a technique used by surgeons and radiologists to control the flow of blood in certain areas of the body. Designed to enhance the safe and targeted delivery of tools used to block blood flow, the device will enter blood vessels deep within the body and form an occlusive barrier.
In a major step for embolization procedures, the ECORE™ device will allow doctors to restrict blood flow in a targeted segment of veins or arteries while still allowing ancillary medical tools (guidewires and catheters) to pass through it.
LaNua is initially targeting treatments in liver cancer patients.
Dr Cormac Farrelly continued, “Add to that the extensive MedTech ecosystem available in Ireland, which is ideal for medical device development, regulatory approval, manufacture and scale and the future looks bright. We know there is a lot of work to do but I strongly believe LaNua Medical’s ECORE™ device will save the lives of many patients and improve the quality of life for countless others.”
During 2024 LaNua Medical closed a €6 million seed funding round, co-led by Elkstone and Atlantic Bridge, with participation from Enterprise Ireland and Furthr VC, to accelerate product development, gain entry into the US market and hire staff in roles across R&D and Quality. The company also established offices at NovaUCD and in Galway.
Tom Fitzmaurice, CEO and co-founder, LaNua Medical added, “It is a great honour to receive this recognition today. We would like to thank NovaUCD for their support throughout our early stages in UCD and as we closed our seed round, spinning out in quarter four last year. It is exciting to see the breadth and depth of talent and skillsets available to a start-up in the Irish MedTech environment as our planned activity accelerates.
We are now focused on building our team in Galway and Dublin and finalising our design activity in 2025. We will complete our device testing and US regulatory filing next year and commence clinical validation of the ECORE™ device in 2027.”
The recipients of the 2025 NovaUCD Invention of the Year Award are, Dr Emer Doheny, UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Dr Jayne Carberry, UCD School of Medicine.
They received the Award for a novel medical device, which they have developed and designed, that allows for the measurement and training of individual oropharyngeal muscles using a moveable oral sensor. Their invention, which has been patented, has a number of potential clinical applications to address medical conditions, such as dysphagia, or difficulties in swallowing, associated with neurodegenerative disease, and respiratory sleep disorders including obstructive sleep apnoea.
Dr Emer Doheny said, “We are honoured to receive this prestigious Award for our medical device invention which was the result of research funded under an internal UCD STEM challenge project. Our project, which combined the expertise of myself and Jayne in clinical and biomedical engineering, was focused on developing a solution to help people who suffer from respiratory sleep disorders and medical conditions associated with dysphagia.”
Dr Jayne Carberry added, “Our next steps are to secure funding to perform further validation studies of our medical device. These validation studies will incorporate gamification and personalised therapy using AI, and our focus is to ultimately find new digital biomarkers related to dysphagia and obstructive sleep apnoea and to then explore the commercialisation opportunities through NovaUCD.”
The recipient of the 2025 NovaUCD Innovation Champion of the Year Award is Professor Kevin O’Connor, Director of BiOrbic, the Research Ireland Centre for Bioeconomy, a Principal Investigator at the UCD Earth Institute and a Full Professor in the UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science.
Through his research activities Professor O’Connor has, over many years, been championing the development of a sustainable global economy. His research expertise includes a focus on circular economy, circular bioeconomy, and biotechnology including, integrated biorefining, biobased chemicals, microbial biotechnology, biodegradable polymers, biocatalysis and protein engineering.
He is also a champion in promoting an innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem within his School and College by actively involving members of his research and postdoc teams in his invention disclosures, patent applications, many of which have been subsequently licensed to industry, and through his commercialisation funded projects.
In addition, he is championing innovation through his leadership roles in shaping Ireland’s bioeconomy research landscape as Director of BioOrbic, as Principal Investigator with Farm Zero C, a collaboration between Carbery and BiOrbic’s research partners to create a climate-neutral nature positive, economically viable dairy farm, and as the lead in the development of pilot scale facilities at the Bioeconomy campus in Lisheen, Co. Tipperary.
Professor O’Connor has disclosed 16 inventions to NovaUCD, 7 patents have been filed, 7 licences concluded with industry, and he has co-founded UCD spin-out companies, Bioplastech and Nova Mentis.
On receiving the 2025 NovaUCD Innovation Champion of the Year Award, Professor O’Connor said, “I would like to thank NovaUCD for the Award. It is a huge honour and a source of great pride for me. I want to acknowledge and thank the current and former members of my research group, BiOrbic research centre, employees of Bioplastech and Nova Mentis, and the many collaborators in industry and academia for their hard work and dedication and without whom my innovation journey would not be possible.”
He added, “Meaningful collaborations arise when people have a shared vision and can see a mutual benefit. Such collaborations need great people to work and stay together to share the ups and downs of the journey which can be relentless and unforgiving. I am privileged to share my innovation journey with incredibly talented people.”
Professor O’Connor is also playing a key leadership role in Talent4BBI, the first industry led PhD Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme in Ireland, which is focused on training a cohort of highly skilled industry-ready early-stage researchers equipped to lead the future of the European bio-based industry sector.
The other four recipients of 2025 NovaUCD Innovation Awards are;
2025 NovaUCD Innovation Award: Professor Wenxin Wang, UCD Charles Institute of Dermatology, UCD School of Medicine
2025 NovaUCD Consultancy of the Year Award: Dr Siobhan Mullan, UCD School of Veterinary Medicine
2025 NovaUCD Licence of the Year Award: Professor Peter Kennedy, UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
2025 NovaUCD CEO of the Year Award: Mike McGearty, Meili.