Radisens continues ESA partnership with €1.6m contract
Cork – Oct 27, 2016 – Radisens today announced a contract worth €1.6 million with the European Space Agency (ESA). The partnership is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through Enterprise Ireland and is the third contract agreed between Radisens and ESA in recent years.
The new contract will see the company develop key enabling technologies required for human spaceflight onto its novel Gemini™ point-of-care platform. The resulting device will target use aboard the International Space Station and on various human spaceflight missions in the future. The technologies to be developed under this ESA programme will also have applications for use on earth to monitor specific chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease from a finger-stick blood sample.
Radisens’ CEO, Jerry O’Brien, expressed his delight with the deal saying that “we are very pleased to extend our long-term partnership with ESA, to develop real-time blood testing technologies for use in space. There are many parallels between blood testing requirements for both space and clinical use such as ease-of-use, compact devices, fast turnaround time and removing the need for needles. Our solutions for the tough space environment will benefit both patients and clinicians to better manage chronic disease as we integrate them into our commercial product.”
ESA’s Technical Officer, Francois Gaubert, welcomed this partnership extension saying “Moving forward in the development of such a technology with Radisens is a very exciting goal and experience. Blood analysis on astronauts has always been dependent on the return to earth of the samples. Hopefully in the near future, physiological parameters of Astronauts onboard the ISS could be monitored within minutes. This would be a major step towards the use of Point of Care diagnostics during future manned exploration missions e.g. a long duration mission to a lunar outpost. The needs of potential space applications will be served by the miniaturization, robustness, and the easy-to-use qualities of the commercial device.”
In congratulating the company, Minister of State for Training, Skills and Innovation, Mr. John Halligan TD said “I wish to congratulate Radisens Diagnostics on winning another valuable contract with the European Space Agency. It clearly demonstrates the capacity of Irish companies to develop highly innovative technologies to meet the highly demanding requirements for space. Radisens Diagnostics is one of a growing number of Irish companies benefitting from the Irish Governments investment in ESA to build new products, new markets and support high value job creation in Ireland.”
Tony McDonald, Programme Manager Enterprise Ireland added “Radisens is one of a growing number of companies developing highly innovative technologies for the commercial market with support from the European Space Agency. We expect to see the number of Irish companies engaging with ESA to grow steadily over the next three years.”
