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BioInnovate Intrapreneurship

Intrapreneurship Programme

BioInnovate’s Intrapreneurship Programme is designed to support industry professionals to drive greater innovation within their companies.  This training programme was developed to address the demand for a proven innovation training methodology within existing companies in the MedTech sector.  This programme has been running for more than 13 years, with significant success reported both by participants and their sponsor companies.  The programme is delivered by experienced BioInnovate Faculty and is supported by Clinicians and Industry Experts. The intrapreneurship teams also benefit from mentoring by BioInnovate Fellows.  

Through this programme, participants work in multi-disciplinary teams to identify unmet clinical needs in areas of strategic interest to their company, and progress these needs through the identify, invent and implement process.  Through this process, teams become absorbed in the clinical area of interest allowing them to identify new opportunities for their company to exploit for the benefit of patients.  

Who?

The programme is aimed at industry professionals who are involved in R&D, product development, marketing and business development within their company.  

How? 

The programme is delivered in 10 days over a 20-week period.  

The training is in-person at University of Galway. 

The topics included are: 

  • The Clinical Landscape 
  • From Observation to Need 
  • Market and Stakeholder Analysis 
  • Needs Filtering 
  • Brainstorming 
  • Ideation and Business Models 
  • Regulatory Affairs, Intellectual Property and Reimbursement 
  • Clinical Evaluation 
  • Communicating Your Innovation 
  • Final Pitches and Close of Programme 

Past Participants 

  • Aerogen 
  • Baxter 
  • Boston Scientific 
  • Creganna Medical 
  • Medtronic 
  • SMT 
  • Teleflex 


Get Involved 

For more information on the BioInnovate Intrapreneurship Programme, contact us.

Testimonials 

“The training has been hugely beneficial, as a Product Development engineer, I do not typically get to engage in Voice of the Customer work. This training gave me the opportunity to engage in clinical immersion and gain experience in identifying unmet needs and working with clinical practitioners to validate the needs. The BioInnovate process has given me a different perspective on the journey that new products go through, which has been hugely beneficial.” - Rebecca Helebert, Medtronic  

“I now have a greater understanding of the work involved identifying true needs in the Medical device market and identifying the impact on stakeholders, understanding the market presents & reimbursement strategy, Regulatory pathway & IP landscape for the solution we envisaged.” - Michael Ryan, Boston Scientific 

"My view on BioInnovate is that it provides a compact and efficient framework to allow participants develop skills to get a deeper understanding of all stages of a device development cycle from concept to commercialisation. Our participation has been through the Industry Training days. This has provided our employees with an excellent grounding in the techniques and methods required to observe and question why procedures are performed the way they always have been, and challenge that, so that both the Clinician and patient experience is improved" - Conor Duffy, Chief Scientific Director, Aerogen 

"Baxter partnered with BioInnovate in 2018 and 2019 - in an effort to improve our internal innovation capabilities. The team helped Baxter learn how to better identify unmet needs in healthcare and ensure that all development programs we were working on were rooted in a true, specific, clearly worded unmet need. I believe this enhanced focus on unmet clinical and customer needs will help Baxter better achieve our mission to save and sustain lives" - Jeane Gatto, Director, Pharmaceutical Strategy, Baxter Healthcare Corporation 

"The BioInnovate programme at University of Galway has produced significant value to Boston Scientific in Ireland over our involvement since it began in 2011, from significantly changing the Innovation culture to identifying new innovative opportunities and being at the core of a thriving Medical Device ecosystem in Ireland. This has significantly improved the value proposition of BSC R&D and Manufacturing presence in Ireland" - Dr. Aiden Flanagan, Principal Research and Development Engineer, Boston Scientific 

“The aim of the BioInnovate Industry Training programme is to embed innovation into the SME and MNC sector, by adding significant indigenous R&D capacity and anchoring these companies in Ireland for decades to come.  Boston Scientific has participated in this training since 2011 with more than 120 employees completing the innovation training programme. 

In addition to supporting trainees to identify unmet healthcare needs, the programme provides commercial training to help identify and rank the needs with the highest potential for both clinical and market impact, while also ensuring the solution will complement Boston Scientific’s existing product portfolio. Importantly, rather than simply developing a proposed technical solution, the trainees are asked and supported to develop a full commercial case for the product, including considering regulatory issues, reimbursement, market size, intellectual property potential and clinical trials costs. This process of examining the full commercial case for the product means the concepts emerging from the programme are much more likely to be supported internally in Boston Scientific, and ultimately become part of their product pipeline. The effectiveness of this approach is clear, with three new products now in development in Boston Scientific coming from the BioInnovate training, spanning important business areas for Boston Scientific including cardiology, vascular surgery and gastrointestinal devices’ - Impact of the Industry Training on Boston Scientific’s R&D  

 
"The BioInnovate Industry intrapreneurship programme has been a very important training format for Creganna Medical since it was initiated. We have had participant teams most years since the beginning and have always found it very useful and beneficial. In particular it has allowed staff to come out of their functional focus and get an appreciation of what it takes to bring a medical device from idea through to commercialisation. It has also helped engender a more innovative and intrapreneurial mindset that will help us continue to evolve and grow positively as a company." - Brendan Marrinan, Strategy and Business Development, Creganna Medical / TE Medical 

“Medtronic has been availing of the BioInnovate Industry Training for over 10 years. One of the benefits of the training programme is the hands-on nature of the workshops and that teams get to directly experience the identify, invent and implement process by visiting cath labs, conducting interviews and completing activities themselves. Getting mentorship from the BioInnovate Fellows is a key part of this experience. Because of the condensed nature of the Industry Training format, mentorship from Fellows provides valuable guidance and insight for Industry Training teams and ensures that they are getting the most from the program, putting learnings into practise in the right way and properly using the tools and processes they are learning about in workshops. Over the years, Medtronic has seen Industry training attendees continue to demonstrate the skills and best practices they have learned in these workshops, in their work with the company.” R&D Engineer and BioInnovate Training Liaison, Medtronic 08/08/2023 

"Medtronic has been availing of the BioInnovate Intrapreneurship training for 8 years. This partnership provides valuable training to Medtronic R&D Engineers and has helped to develop key skill sets within the company." - Shane Nolan, Associate R&D Engineer, Medtronic 

"Participating in BioInnovate programme enabled Teleflex Limerick OEM to reshape its technical capabilities strategy. A needs-based approach enabled the site to re-analysis its direction. As a direct result of participating in the BioInnovate programme the site put together a proposal for €1M investment to enhance our capabilities in neurovascular. The proposal gained corporate approval, and we have begun the hiring process. We expect to gain significant new business based on our capabilities to support Neurovascular." - David McKernan, Plant Manager, Teleflex Medical