Ireland’s MDA Identifies Key Priorities for Next Government

The Irish Medical Devices Association has laid out an ambitious set of priorities it hopes to see acted on by the next government to maintain the country’s competitiveness in the medtech sector.

In a report — Priorities for the Next Government: Innovating for Ireland’s Future Health and Care, Driving Economic Growth in the Medical Technology Sector — IMDA points out that Ireland is home to 18 of 25 of the world’s top medtech companies. With the evolving healthcare models worldwide, the medtech sector is poised to provide innovative solutions to enhance patient outcomes, the group asserts.

To that end, the group identifies six priority areas that it wants to see addressed:

• Adopting the newest information systems, innovations and the best business models;
• Incentivizing clinical industry engagement to support commercialization of innovations;
• Changing the procurement process to promote long-term results to help reduce healthcare costs;
• Reforming the capital gains tax and share option schemes to encourage new medtech startups;
• Ensuring that higher education institutions prepare students with the skills to gain jobs and promote entrepreneurship; and
• Making sure that the Knowledge Development Box— akin to the UK’s patent box — supports the generation of intellectual property.

The report discusses each priority area, providing recommendations on how each could be addressed. For example, in addition to reforming the capital gains tax, the group suggests creating an equivalent to the UK’s Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme, which aims to remove barriers to trade for small startups.

IMDA Director Sinead Keogh said in a prepared statement that attracting clinical research to Ireland should be “underpinned by state of the art infrastructure to support work with cutting edge technologies like robotics, surgery simulation, cell manufacturing and 3D printing.”

To read the report, visit www.fdanews.com/11-30-15-ireland.pdf. — Michael Cipriano