Trinity Spin Out Company Receives Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Award

Oct 11, 2011

Dr Gerard Lacey, Co-founder, Director and Chief Technical Officer of Glanta Ltd., a Trinity spinout company, won the 2011 Enterprise Ireland ICT Commercialisation Award at the Big Ideas Technology Showcase.

Receiving the award for building a spin-out company from his research at Trinity College Dublin, Dr  Lacey’s hand hygiene training and assessment system technology,  Surewash,  is used in hospitals to prevent the spread of healthcare acquired infections like MRSA.

Dr Gerard Lacey, co-founder and Director of Glanta Ltd, left, winner of the Enterprise Ireland ICT Commercialisation Award with Feargal O’Morain, Enterprise Ireland and Minister Sean Sherlock.

Glanta, located in the Trinity Enterprise Centre, provides health care professionals with repeatable, real-time objective feedback on the effectiveness of their hand hygiene technique compared to the widely accepted World Health Organisation (WHO) hand wash protocol.
   
The WHO has identified hand hygiene as the single most important factor in the spread of healthcare Acquired Infections, which in the US alone kills 100,00 people and costs US BN$35-45 annually.

Glanta is successfully testing and trialling the Surewash system in a number of hospitals here and abroad, including the Mater Private Hospital. Dr Lacey invented and developed the image processing IP which is at the heart of Glanta’s hand hygiene training and assessment system. As well as creating the IP, he has been instrumental and directly involved in all of the above commercialisation activities.

The Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Awards were presented by the Minister for Research and Innovation, Sean Sherlock on October 10th last to three companies that showcased their technologies at similar events in the past and have since successfully established a spin-out company.