The right constituents
A specialist in mass spectrometry, EireChrom is upping the ante in terms of its R&D focus having moved into the Questum Innovation Centre in Clonmel
T he winner of last year’s Outstanding Small Business Award in the SFA National Small Business Awards, EireChrom, is continuing to rack up its achievements in 2017.
With a strong background in the chemical analysis and life sciences industry, PJ Moloney founded the company in 2013 to plug a gap in the market for mass spectrometry.
This is an advanced separations technique used to find a chemical compound’s true fingerprint by breaking it down to its constituent parts for quantitative and qualitative analysis.
The technique has applications in everything from clinical research to drug development and food and beverage testing to forensic toxicology.
“I could see the industry was moving towards higher levels of sensitivity, better detection levels and to mass spectrometry,” says Moloney. “I also saw that some multinationals were winning contracts based on price and maybe global agreements they had in place, but lacked the hands-on and technical knowledge in Ireland.”
Moloney describes his company as being the ‘go-to’ provider of mass spectrometry services in Ireland. As well as offering a range of services and products – from leading global suppliers such as SCIEX and Finesse – it also delivers research and development (R&D), consultancy and training. Clients include the Department of Agriculture, Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, Mallincrodt, Janssen, Bristol Myers Squibb and AbbVie.
Although set up in Cork, EireChrom recently moved into the Questum Innovation Centre in Clonmel, Co Tipperary. There, its new facilities include two 25-seater training rooms and an applications laboratory as well as plenty of room to expand.
And expansion is very much on the agenda in 2017. “We have really scaled up after winning a number of awards last year,” says Moloney. In addition to the SFA award, achievements during 2016 included winning Young Leader of the Year at the Irish Laboratory Awards, and design and agri sustainability accolades at the National Ploughing Championships.
Over the next few months, a significant step-up in the company’s journey will be the commencement of its work with one of Ireland’s leading research centres in clinical sciences under Science Foundation Ireland’s hub and spoke model.
“We are bringing PhD candidates into the business and very much looking at Horizon 2020. We will be really emphasising our tagline – ‘innovative scientific solution providers’,” says Moloney.
“We are a really focused R&D company that has a supply element to chemical analysis and the life sciences industry in terms of high-end analytical equipment. We facilitate the best training on the island of Ireland and have core research that marries all of this together.”
At the moment, the company employs five full-time staff and a number of interns but growth is also on the cards in this regard. “I would hope that we will shortly be announcing another 20 to 50 jobs in our business,” says Moloney.
“We are bringing PhD candidates into the business and very much looking at Horizon 2020”