Spotlight on Aer Therapeutics
Professor Stefan Oscarson and Professor Stephen Carrington (pictured) received the 2023 NovaUCD Innovation Award in recognition of their successful and longstanding research collaboration with Professor John Fahy, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
The focus of this collaboration was to understand why mucus in the lungs of people with respiratory diseases is thick, sticky and difficult to cough up and to develop new treatment strategies to help such patients breathe more easily.
The UCD-UCSF research collaboration led to the filing of a patent application for a novel mucolytic drug to address a large unmedical need for patients with mucus-associated lung diseases. These diseases include, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD), asthma, cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis.
Aer Therapeutics, the first joint UCD-UCSF spin-out company, was founded by Professor Oscarson and Professor Fahy, and is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina. The company licensed the patented novel mucolytic drug in 2022 and closed a $36 million funding round to enable initial safety studies in patients and a proof-of-concept clinical trial in patients with COPD.
Spotlight on Go Eve
Go Eve, an electric vehicle (EV) charging start-up, is a joint UCD and Imperial College London spin-out.
Current EV charging technology only allows for one or two electric vehicles (EVs) to access a fast-charging station at a time. Go Eve has developed the ‘DockChain’ system which allows multiple EVs to be recharged from a single charger, by extending the reach of single rapid chargers, to a daisy-chain of low-cost charging terminals, to service multiple parking spaces.
DockChain was originally invented by a team of academics and researchers led by Professor Robert Shorten at the UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Professor Shorten subsequently moved to the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial and the technology has been further advanced both at UCD and at Imperial, with additional contributions by the commercial team.
Go Eve was co-founded in 2021 by Hugh Sheehy, John Goodbody, Professor Robert Shorten, Dr Pietro Ferraro and Andrew Cullen and the company has to date secured €3.5 million in funding with investors including; The Pearl Family Office; Carter Gem; Automotive Ventures Inc.; Kero Development Partners and Cur8 Capital.
The company which has already announced a partnership with Zerova Technologies Europe, a leading provider of DC charging solutions, headquartered in The Netherlands, has offices at NovaUCD, in London and in the US.
Spotlight on Manna Air Delivery
Manna, a global leader in drone delivery, was founded in 2019 by serial entrepreneur Bobby Healy, and is a graduate of the NovaUCD ecosystem having been previously headquartered at both NovaUCD and NexusUCD.
The company designs, builds and operates unmanned aerial vehicles and is dedicated to improving the world by making lightning-fast suburban deliveries affordable, green, and safe. With its proprietary technology, Manna ensures safe, sustainable, and fast delivery services, operating in the highest population density of any drone delivery operation globally.
Manna, working with partners such as Just Eat and DoorDash, has already completed over 165,000 successful deliveries in Ireland (Blanchardstown, Balbriggan, Oranmore, and Moneygall) and in the US (Dallas-Fort Worth) and had begun testing in Finland, further demonstrating its ability to scale across diverse markets and climates.
The company, which currently employs 100 people, has to date secured over €60 million in funding from investors such as Molten Ventures, Tapestry VC, Dynamo Ventures, Atlantic Bridge, ffVC, Elkstone Ventures, Coca-Cola HBC and Radius Capital.
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Spotlight on Output Sports
Output Sports, sports technology company focused on making elite-level sports science simple and scalable, was co-founded in 2020 by Dr Martin O'Reilly, Dr Darragh Whelan, Julian Eberle and Professor Brian Caulfield, as a spin-out from the UCD School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science and the Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics hosted by UCD.
The company’s technology enables strength and conditioning coaches, sport scientists and rehab professionals to capture and analyse athletic data using a single wearable sensor system. It can be, and is, used across multiple sports including at amateur and professional level, for velocity-based training, reactive strength, and power development to optimise athletes’ performance.
Output Sports, headquartered at NovaUCD, currently provides more than 800 sports organisations in over 40 countries, including over half of all English Premier League clubs, with the insights needed to make more informed, data-backed decisions to improve athletic performance. The company, which also has an office in Boston, is also working with professional US sports leagues such as the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS and the WNBA.
The company has raised ca. €5.8 million in funding to date and investors include; Apex Capital, Uni.Fund, Dopamine Sports, Elkstone, Atlantic Bridge and Enterprise Ireland.