Innopharma Labs is one of two Irish companies to receive up to €2.3 million in research and innovation funding from EU Horizon 2020. The Dublin-based company, which was set up in 2009, develops solutions in advanced manufacturing for the pharmaceutical industry. Its newly-funded product development is called SmartCrys, which offers manufacturing intelligence, process automation and data analytics for the development of active pharmaceutical ingredients – the substances that give drugs their medicinal effect.
Horizon 2020 is the biggest ever EU Research and Innovation programme, with nearly €80 billion of funding available over seven years (2014 to 2020). The fund was established to encourage breakthrough discoveries, taking ideas from the lab to the market. After a lengthy and application and pitching process, which saw companies from all sectors from across the EU take part, Innopharma was one of 65 EU companies who were selected to receive funding.
SmartCrys will provide an opportunity to achieve a company turnover of €37 million over the next five years and to grow staff from 56 to 70.
Dr. Sean Costello, Director of Technical Operations at Innopharma Labs, said: “This award recognises the drive and innovation of Innopharma to bring to market leading edge advanced manufacturing technologies and to solve critical challenges within the pharmaceutical process manufacturing industry. The award is driven by the culmination of several years of technology development by Innopharma alongside our industrial customers, academic partners, support from Enterprise Ireland and collaborative exchanges with partners in the PMTC and SSPC. The award enables us to double down on our commitment to play a leadership role in delivering Pharma 4.0 transformational technologies.”
