12 New High-Tech Ventures Commence University College Dublin’s 2012 Entrepreneurship Programme

May 2, 2012 - PRLog -- Twelve new high-tech and knowledge-intensive business ventures (profiled below) and 28 researchers are taking part on University College Dublin’s (UCD) 2012 entrepreneurship programme.

The annual Campus Company Development Programme (CCDP), which has just commenced at NovaUCD, assists UCD academic and research entrepreneurs in bringing their innovative ideas from intellectual concepts to fully developed and sound commercial businesses.

Just under 190 new ventures and 290 individuals have to date completed this programme which has run since 1996.

The programme culminates with a high profile Awards Evening which will be held in November. At the end of this event the UCD 2012 Start-Up of the Year Award will be presented to one of the participating ventures. Former winners of this prestigious Award include companies such as BiancaMed, Equinome, Logentries and RendezVu.

APC Ltd, the overall winner of the 2011 award, has already hired 9 permanent PhD qualified engineers and chemists. The company is currently recruiting highly-skilled staff for its technology divisions and expects to employ 20 people by the end of 2013.

APC Ltd provides pharmaceutical processing technologies and customised solutions to global pharmaceutical companies that require the delivery of their medicines to the global market in a lean, reliable and robust manner. APC Ltd was founded by Professor Brian Glennon and Dr Mark Barrett as a spin-out from UCD’s School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering.

The new ventures and individuals participating on this year's programme are commercialising research undertaken throughout the University, including research in the UCD Schools of Biosystems Engineering, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Computer Science and Informatics, Physics and Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science.

Professor Peter Clinch, UCD Vice-President for Innovation said, “The Campus Company Development Programme is University College Dublin’s main business support programme and is designed specifically to assist researchers in establishing new UCD spin-out companies to commercialise the innovative ideas arising from their research programmes.”

He added, “I am delighted that nearly 30 of our researchers are taking part in this year’s programme. It is critically important for the development of a sustainable smart economy in Ireland that university researchers, who have developed innovative ideas, participate on programmes such as the CCDP to understand and learn the skills required to establish new high-tech companies and to grow and develop such companies into the future.”

The CCDP is a nine-month, part-time programme designed to suit the busy timetable of researchers and academics. It offers a mix of monthly workshops, mentoring and one-to-one consultancy. It is delivered by NovaUCD staff, with support from NovaUCD’s sponsors and network, as well as other outside experts.

The CCDP is designed to assist academic entrepreneurs by providing them with the skills necessary to transform their ideas into commercially feasible new ventures. Participants on the programme have the opportunity to access NovaUCD’s desk space and incubation facilities and associated innovation support services.

This year a prize fund of over €35,000 will be available to the 2012 CCDP award winners. In addition to cash prizes and 6-months free NovaUCD desk space, Aristo, Arthur Cox, Delaney Financial Consultancy, Deloitte and Newmarket Partnership will be providing professional services. AccountsIQ will also be providing a free 1-year subscription to its accountancy software.

Profiles of the new ventures are available on  request.

ENDS
2 May 2012

For further information contact Micéal Whelan, University College Dublin, Communications Manager (Innovation), e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie, t: + 353 1 716 3712.