US health data platform Datavant is to create an “initial” 125 jobs in Galway by 2027 with the opening of a global research and development (R&D) centre.
Recruitment is already underway with a range of engineering roles now open. The group will be working out of the Portershed initially with plans to open a city centre location before the end of the year.
The new roles will initially be in engineering, the majority of which will focus on building Datavant’s privacy and linkage technologies to support its life sciences and public sector business.
The company is also recruiting for technology roles to support security and corporate systems.
The Galway-based team will significantly expand upon Datavant’s established presence of UK-based professionals, including engineers, data scientists, privacy experts, and product management specialists.
The company has also announced the appointment of Ciaran O’Toole as its new vice president, engineering and Galway technical lead, who will be based out of the Galway office.
Mr O’Toole will lead the effort to build the Datavant engineering team in Ireland with a focus on building the company’s life sciences technology roadmap and integration with the enterprise technology organisation.
Prior to joining Datavant, Mr O’Toole was vice president of software engineering for Globalization Partners, a Boston-based global recruitment and talent company, where he led the build-out of the company’s Irish engineering team and launched its Galway site.
Mr O’Toole said the company plans to continue to build out its Galway-based team beyond 2027 with various technology roles and corporate functions in addition to technology.
Datavant has more than 8,000 employees. Its platform enables data exchange between life sciences, payers, and providers.
The group said the decision to create a global development centre outside of the US was influenced by a desire to “tap into top tech talent” and for “around-the-clock productivity”.
Two of the key reasons why Datavant chose Galway were because of the “rich talent pool”, particularly in relation to health tech, and because of its proximity to Datavant customers in the EU.
Datavant chief executive Kyle Armbrester said: “At Datavant, we are solving one of the biggest challenges in healthcare — fragmented data.
“Data is hard to move, protect and use because across life sciences, payers and providers, critical insights remain siloed in a fragmented healthcare system.
“This makes it difficult to create a full, real-time picture of patient and member health and results in inefficiencies, high costs and poor outcomes.
“Our platform securely and compliantly moves health data from where it sits to where it needs to be.”
IDA chief executive Michael Lohan said the company was “a welcome addition” to the region’s established healthcare technology cluster.
