LaNua Medical Receives 2025 NovaUCD Spin-out of the Year Award

LaNua Medical has been named the recipient of the 2025 NovaUCD Spin-out of the Year Award.

LaNua Medical is developing a groundbreaking medical device designed to make minimally invasive, x-ray-guided, endovascular treatment of numerous conditions including internal bleeding, vascular malformations and many benign and malignant tumours safe and effective. This should make procedures quicker and more straightforward for operators, providing a cost-effective solution for healthcare systems and lead to consistent outcomes for patients.

LaNua Medical was presented with the Award by Professor Orla Feely, President, University College Dublin (UCD) during the annual presentation of the NovaUCD Innovation Awards which took place at the UCD University Club.

The company was co-founded in 2024 by Dr Cormac Farrelly, UCD School of Medicine, Dr Eoin O'Cearbhaill and Sajjad Amiri, UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering along with Tom Fitzmaurice, formerly a Vice-President at Medtronic, following the completion of an Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund research project at the University.

On receiving the 2025 NovaUCD Spin-out of the Year Award, Dr Cormac Farrelly, co-founder, LaNua Medical, said, “As an Interventional Radiologist over the last 2 decades, I have witnessed first-hand how technological advances in minimally invasive x-ray guided endovascular treatments have led to powerful patient benefits.

Twenty-five years after graduating from UCD’s medical school it is an honour to be part of the winning team of this year’s NovaUCD Spin-out of the Year Award. Without the support of NovaUCD and Enterprise Ireland, we would not now find ourselves in such an exciting position.”

LaNua Medical’s pioneering device named ECORE™ will help to modernize embolization procedures, a technique used by surgeons and radiologists to control the flow of blood in certain areas of the body. Designed to enhance the safe and targeted delivery of tools used to block blood flow, the device will enter blood vessels deep within the body and form an occlusive barrier.

In a major step for embolization procedures, the ECORE™ device will allow doctors to restrict blood flow in a targeted segment of veins or arteries while still allowing ancillary medical tools (guidewires and catheters) to pass through it.

LaNua initially targets treatments for liver cancer patients.

Dr Cormac Farrelly added, “ Add to that the extensive MedTech ecosystem available in Ireland, which is ideal for medical device development, regulatory approval, manufacture and scale and the future looks bright. We know there is a lot of work to do but I strongly believe LaNua Medical’s ECORE ™ device will save the lives of many patients and improve the quality of life for countless others.”

During 2024 LaNua Medical closed a €6 million seed funding round, co-led by Elkstone and Atlantic Bridge, with participation from Enterprise Ireland and Furthr VC, to accelerate product development, gain entry into the US market and hire staff in roles across R&D and Quality. The company also established offices at NovaUCD and in Galway.

Tom Fitzmaurice, CEO and co-founder, LaNua Medical added, “It is a great honour to receive this recognition today. We would like to thank NovaUCD for their support throughout our early stages in UCD and as we closed our seed round, spinning out in quarter four last year. It is exciting to see the breadth and depth of talent and skillsets available to a start-up in the Irish MedTech environment as our planned activity accelerates.

We are now focused on building our team in Galway and Dublin and finalising our design activity in 2025. We will complete our device testing and US regulatory filing next year and commence clinical validation of the ECORE^TMdevice in 2027.”

LaNua Medical was also named the winner of Enterprise Ireland's Big Ideas competition in 2024 and represented Ireland at the Pegasus Startup World Cup in San Francisco.

The annual NovaUCD Innovation Awards highlight successes made in areas of knowledge transfer, consultancy, entrepreneurship and the promotion of an innovation culture, by members of the UCD research, innovation and entrepreneurial community.

Speaking at the event Professor Orla Feely, UCD's president, said, “UCD is committed to delivering impact from our leading research and innovation across a broad range of disciplines. The NovaUCD Innovation Awards, which have become a key annual event, recognise the achievements of our research, innovation and entrepreneurial communities and demonstrate our strength in developing talent and creating and applying knowledge to deliver impact.

I congratulate all who have received this year’s Awards and wish the Awardees every future success as they continue to deliver impact in Ireland and further afield through their commercialisation, consultancy, entrepreneurial and innovation activities.”

A total of 7 Awards were presented by Professor Feely and the other Awardees are;

• 2025 NovaUCD Innovation Award: Professor Wenxin Wang, UCD Charles Institute of Dermatology, UCD School of Medicine
• 2025 NovaUCD Invention of the Year Award: Dr Emer Doheny, UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Dr Jayne Carberry, UCD School of Medicine
• 2025 NovaUCD Licence of the Year Award: Professor Peter Kennedy, UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• 2025 NovaUCD CEO of the Year Award: Mike McGearty, Meili
• 2025 NovaUCD Consultancy of the Year Award: Dr Siobhan Mullan, UCD School of Veterinary Medicine
• 2025 NovaUCD Innovation Champion of the Year Award: Professor Kevin O’Connor, BiOrbic, Research Ireland Centre for Bioeconomy and UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science.

NovaUCD is supported under the KT Boost Programme co-funded by the Government of Ireland and the European Union, through the ERDF Southern, Eastern & Midland Regional Programme 2021-2027.