Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton TD has announced that Cook Medical, the largest privately owned medical device company in the world, is to invest up to €16.5m over four years creating highly skilled positions in Research and Development activities at its Limerick site, with Government support through IDA Ireland.

Established in Limerick in 1996, Cook Medical's Irish operation has grown from eight employees to over 630, becoming one of the leading medical device employers in the country. The recent winner of the Irish Medical Technology Company of the Year Award, Cook Medical’s dedicated R&D team has built strong relationships with local education institutions such as the University of Limerick, offering work experience opportunities and funding for collaborative research.

-- Advertisement --

This new R&D investment will focus on two projects: the establishment of a state-of-the-art Research and Development laboratory and further enhance Cook Ireland's position as a global design centre for the development of self-expanding stents and delivery devices.

The state-of-the-art lab will be designed with the objective of fostering innovation through enhanced collaboration with doctors and clinicians, developing new anatomical models to provide a more realistic environment for product evaluation and testing prior to commercial release.

The second project involves the establishment of Cook Ireland as the key site for R&D for the Zilver product line; a flagship range of peripheral intervention devices at Cook Medical. The Limerick-based site is currently the sole manufacturing plant for the Zilver PTX Drug-Eluting Peripheral Stent, the world's first approved drug-eluting stent for use in the Superficial Femoral Artery. This new investment will enable Cook Ireland to create an R&D team exclusively for this product pipeline and expand its current capabilities of endoscopy and urology product R&D.

(CD/GK)