A Galway-headquartered medical technology company has received €3.6 million in grant funding which will help it commercialise a device to treat a colorectal condition.
Signum Surgical, which develops minimally invasive technology to treat colorectal diseases, won a €2.3 million grant from the European Union horizon 2020 scheme and €1.3 million from Ireland's Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund (DTIF).
Signum said on Tuesday the grants would support regulatory and clinical programmes, which will lead to the commercialisation of its BioHealx device, which is designed to treat anal fistula, a colorectal condition that affects one in 5,000 people worldwide.
BioHealx is so designed to require only an outpatient procedure and therefore it may eliminate the need for multiple surgeries in patients with the condition, the company said. In the US alone, about 64,000 surgeries are performed annually to treat anal fistula, although Signum says current treatments are rarely successful.
Chief technology officer Eoin Bambury said the grant funding validated the need for a "viable solution where other approaches have been unsuccessful in treating this patient population".
The funding follows a €2.6 million series A investment round that closed in 2016, which included investment from Enterprise Ireland and the Western Development Commission.
