The Galway based medtech company Signum Surgical has been awarded two grants worth a combined €3.6 million.
Signum have have said that the money will be used to advance clinical programmes of its BioHealx medtech device, which is a treatment for a colerectal condition.
Of the grant funding, €2.3 million comes from the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, and a further €1.3 million has been awarded to Signum from the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund.
BioHealx is an bioabsorbable implant designed to improve the treatment of anal fistula, a condition which develop due to an infected or blocked anal gland.
If untreated it can lead to an abscess and a spreading infection. Signum have said that doctors are unsatisfied with current treatments which are often unsuccessful and can require multiple procedures.
But this new implant requires only a single procedure, and is designed to reduce the risk of infection and dissolve in the body when its jobs is done.
In the US it’s estimated that 64,000 surgical procedures are currently carried out every year to treat this condition.
Eoin Brambury, co-founder and chief technology officer of Signum Surgical said they were glad to receive this funding, which he said shows there is a need for a “viable solution where other approaches have been unsuccessful”.
