Irish Medical Technology Company Appoints Rolf Classon as Board Director and Chairperson

PRLog (Press Release) - Mar 31, 2010 -
BiancaMed (www.biancamed.com), a leading medical technology company based in Ireland, today announced that it is strengthening its Board by appointing Rolf Classon as Board Director and Non-Executive Chairperson.

Rolf Classon brings many years of experience to this appointment and is currently Chairman of the Board of Hill-Rom (NYSE:HRC). With annual revenues approaching $1.5 billion, Hill-Rom is a leading manufacturer and provider of medical technologies and related services for the health care industry.  Mr Classon is also a former Chairperson of the Executive Committee at Bayer Healthcare, the healthcare division of Bayer AG, the global healthcare and chemicals company. In addition Mr Classon has also served as chair of numerous medical and technology companies.

BiancaMed has developed and is marketing SleepMinder™, an accurate, contactless and convenient device for the measurement of sleep and breathing in the home. The core of BiancaMed’s proprietary technology is a sensitive radio frequency motion sensor that can detect respiration and movement without being connected to the human body. The sensor incorporates sophisticated biometric software that converts the motion data into a measurement of sleep.  Last week BiancaMed won an inaugural Irish Times All-island Innovation Award in association with InterTradeIreland for its wireless sensor technology by winning the Product/Service Innovation Category.

Announcing the appointment of Mr Classon, Dr Conor Hanley, CEO, BiancaMed said, “We are delighted to be bringing onboard a Chair of the calibre of Mr Classon. He will contribute significantly to the strategic direction and growth of the company.”

BiancaMed was co-founded in 2003 by Dr Philip de Chazal, Dr Conor Hanley and Professor Conor Heneghan as a spin-out from University College Dublin's (UCD) School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering. BiancaMed currently employs 20 people and is headquartered in NovaUCD in Dublin.

Donald Fitzmaurice, a BiancaMed Board Member commented, "We welcome Rolf’s appointment as Chair. Rolf has had significant success and experience managing global healthcare businesses. His guidance and experience will assist BiancaMed to grow and expand around the world."

Commenting on his appointment, Rolf Classon said, “I was attracted to BiancaMed by their exciting and innovative technology platform. Sleep is increasingly recognised as a major component of health and wellness, alongside diet and exercise. We expect the market for sleep monitoring products to grow strongly in the coming years and BiancaMed is very well positioned to benefit from this growth.” He added, “The company is at an exciting point in its commercial development and I look forward to working with the Board and Management team to exploit the many attractive market opportunities open to the company.”

ENDS
31 March 2010
For further information contact Micéal Whelan, NovaUCD, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie, t: +353 (0)1 716 3712.