Croom Medical’s Kevin Geary discusses the company’s growth and the success of Ireland’s medtech industry.
Limerick’s Croom Medical is a precision manufacturing company which went from an employee count of two people in its founding year in 1984 to now employing more than 150, 40 years later. And within that time, the family-run business – which now manufactures around 250,000 orthopaedic implants annually – has won several awards, while consistently collaborating with universities and research organisations in the country and abroad.
Although, much of the company’s growth happened fast, as it tripled in headcount between 2021 and 2024 thanks to a €12m investment into its facilities which came just a few years after founder Paddy Byrnes’ son Patrick took over the business as CEO.
Speaking to SiliconRepublic.com, the company’s chief operating officer Kevin Geary says that Patrick’s pre-existing experience working in the country’s medtech industry was one of the biggest reasons for the company’s recent growth.
“The funniest thing about medical devices in Ireland and especially with orthopaedics – even though there’s a lot of different factories, the industry is quite small,” Geary said. “So, based on his relationships and based on going out there and meeting people – that has increased the ability our ability to grow the company.”
However, the company, much like many in the medtech field in the country, also owes its growth to international expansion. According to Geary, the company has seen a “lot more interest” from new customers within the US.
“The evolution of the company now has been more in relation to getting up over to the US and showing what we can do as a provider of technological solutions. And that has opened a lot more doors for us”.
Keeping in line with its current trajectory, Croom Medical has submitted plans to double its factory size to up to 64,000 sq ft and hire around 50 new employees, all within the next two years.
Hard pressed to find faults
Ireland has a booming medtech industry. According to IDA Ireland, the country exports more than €14.9bn worth of medtech products annually to more than 100 international destinations.
It is also home to 14 of the top 15 medtech companies worldwide, while employing more than 50,000 people in the sector – making Ireland the largest per capita employer of medical device professionals in Europe.
The accolades keep adding up as 80pc of the world’s stents and half of the world’s acute hospital ventilators are also manufactured in the tiny country of Ireland.
Geary believes that support from IDA Ireland, as well as strong collaborative connections between the industry and higher educational institutions, are some of the reasons for the country’s success in the industry.
Since 2022, Ireland has seen 33 announced investments in the medical device sector, making it the second largest destination for medtech investment in Europe.
“Historically speaking, Ireland has done a really good job and this region has done a really good job of listening to industry and tailoring courses that will actually suit that and then evolve over time,” Geary said.
“There’s a heavy industry involvement and partnerships with the likes of University of Limerick, Technological University of Shannon.
“There’s a lot of interaction between industry and academia to not essentially steer but help design the new things that are coming in.”
Earlier last year, the University of Galway launched a new health innovation institute to pioneer disease understanding and develop healthcare solutions. While in 2023, medtech company Medtronic entered into a five-year partnership with the university to expand its focus on the sector and progress its range of STEM programmes.
In 2022, US medtech Stryker announced a bursary which would cover the tuition fees for Munster Technology University’s students studying artificial intelligence (AI).
Through partnerships and collaborations, Ireland is able to attract organisations and industry leaders, Geary continued to explain. “That’s vitally important because as an area we’re probably [at] about 4.1pc unemployment rate which is basically full employment.”
Skills and skillnets
Geary ranks communication and collaboration as key skills required to succeed in the medtech industry as well as problem-solving, which he describes as the second most-vital skill. “After that, it’s technological skills, regulatory skills,” he added.
“There are so many different skillnets in Ireland,” Geary said, which he thinks is yet another reason the industry’s success.
According to Skillnet Ireland, the country boasts 70 skillnet networks, which bring businesses and industry together with the aim of upskilling and reskilling employees to support business development in the country.
Geary is a newly appointed committee member of the Irish Medtech Skillnet, and he gets to see what the challenges throughout the wider industry are and what the network can do to address the issues.
Geary found it hard to say what could be holding the industry back, but when pressed, he pointed towards AI adoption.
“There are some organisations calling algorithms artificial intelligence, when they’re not, they’re just an algorithm. And then there’s other organisations that are putting a lot of emphasis and focus and effort onto artificial intelligence,” he explained.
“A lack of understanding forms the basis of that challenge. Organisations can succeed by understanding it better and they can succeed by investing time energy into training courses for their team members or staff.”
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