Ireland’s first private laboratory facility incubator space for the life sciences sector has opened its doors in Waterford City.
Kinetic Labs is a facility offering state-of-the-art single and shared wet lab space, office facilities, meeting rooms and a café and is now available on a rental basis to start-ups and science-based companies offering all of the lab facilities needed to develop their products and processes.
The innovative new business has been created through a combination of a REDF grant from Enterprise Ireland, with additional funding from WorkLAB and Waterford City & County Council the first wet lab incubation facilities for science-based companies to be created in the Southeast.
On of the Directors of the project is well-known pharmaceutical entrepreneur Patsy Carney. Having built Eirgen Pharma from scratch to a global multinational, Patsy understands the needs of both start-ups and multinationals having worked at both ends of the scale in the fine chemicals and pharmaceutical industries. Patsy discusses the new venture in the most recent The Science of Business podcas,t with fellow scientific entrepreneur Louise Grubb and founder of Q1 Scientific.
During the podcast interview, Patsy says:
“We know that Kinetic Labs will play a critical role in building on the capability and entrepreneurship potential of existing indigenous and multinational life science companies here in the Southeast. We are a region with a core cluster of life-sciences and medical device companies and we have a critical mass of talent in this sector, and I know that for start-ups finding affordable and flexible lab space can be a big challenge. Kinetic Labs offers the ideal space for those working in the industry who might be considering their own entrepreneurial journey along with spinouts from third-level universities and institutes plus the life-sciences sector, sciences, medical device, pharma, bio-pharma and even the higher-end functional food sector. There is even great opportunity for the specialist equipment suppliers to use the space to demo products to potential customers.”
Patsy says that it is his vision to develop a science innovation hub through Kinetic Labs. Through the interview, Patsy also shares how his early interest in science was ignited at secondary school. He details his extensive career journey and the variety of opportunities that he made happen including his decision to take an MBA with his work colleague Tom Brennan and how they then developed the business plan for what would become one of the country’s more successful indigenous pharmaceutical companies.
Just some of the extensive advice in the podcast interview that Patsy shares for start-ups is to be prepared for risk: “Any startup is a risk and you have to be prepared for that – however, to grow levels of entrepreneurship in Ireland there is a need for more government supports and more of a cushion for entrepreneurs. Be that in the form of tax breaks or entrepreneurship relief to help reduce this risk and create an eco-system in order to nurture entrepreneurship with the likes of Kinetic Labs, those elements are essential in order to make this happen.”
The Science of Business podcast series is hosted by the multi-award-winning serial entrepreneur and founder of Q1 Scientific and Trivium Vet Louise Grubb. The series features interviews with some of the key people behind Ireland’s global success in pharma, life sciences, health and biomedical sectors. Louise brings her twenty years of experience within the sector to the table and her own knowledge of what is required to establish a pharma success story. To listen to the full interview, The Science of Business is available to listen to on all podcast platforms and at https://q1scientific.com/q1-scientific-podcast/
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