The PMBRC were winners of the Research & Development Achievement Award at the 2021 Pharma Industry Awards. The Award ceremony for 2021 was delayed due to the COVID pandemic, but was held on Wednesday night (27th April 2022) in the Mansion House in Dublin. Since launching in 2014, the Pharma Industry Awards has established itself as the benchmark for excellence for those operating in Ireland’s pharma industry. The Research & Development Achievement award recognises an individual or team working in the pharmaceutical sector on the research and commercial development of new products / processes.
“We are delighted to win the Research and Development prize at the Pharma Awards” said Dr. Niall O’Reilly, PMBRC Manager, speaking after the awards ceremony on Wednesday night. “2021 was a busy year for us. Key achievements included the launch of our OcuHealth Commercialisation Fund project for the treatment of dry eye disease, the development of rapid PCR assays for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 and progress in our gene therapy research for the treatment of Canavan’s disease, a rare genetic disorder. We also installed new X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Q-TOF Mass Spectrometry systems in our labs which greatly increases our research capabilities. To be recognised by our peers for our research achievements means a lot to everyone involved here”.
The PMBRC is one of 16 Enterprise Ireland Technology Gateways which delivers innovation support and assistance to start-ups, HPSUs, SMEs, large indigenous and multinationals in a wide range of sectors. Every year the PMBRC works with a range of industry partners in the pharma, medical device, food, ingredients, veterinary, agri-science and engineering sectors.
The PMBRC is no stranger to awards having picked up the R&D Achievement prize in 2017 and 2019 and the Research Centre of the Year accolade in 2020. The Centre also won the “Outstanding Academic Achievement Award in the field of Digital Technology” at the 2019 Technology Ireland Awards in collaboration with WIT’s Walton Institute.
In what turned out to be a good night for South East Technological University (SETU), the B.Sc. (Hons) in Pharmaceutical Science degree won the Education and Training award at the event.