One of the world’s leading health data platform companies, Datavant, has just opened its global R&D centre in Galway.

The company plans to initially hire up to 125 people at its Global Development Centre in Galway by the end of 2027. 

The firm said recruitment is already underway with a range of engineering roles now open.

Datavant Ireland will start working out of the Portershed with plans to open a city centre location before the end of the year.

The project is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland.  

Datavant CEO Kyle Armbrester was due to launch the centre at Galway’s Portershed with Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke and IDA CEO Michael Lohan.  

Members of Datavant’s Executive Leadership Team also in attendance include Matt Vail, Chief Technology Officer; Arnaub Chatterjee, General Manager and President of Life Sciences, Ecosystem and Public Sector; and Susan Yun, Chief People Officer.

The company is also announcing the appointment of its new Vice President, Engineering and Galway Technical Lead, Ciaran O’Toole, who will be based out of the Galway office. 

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.

Prior to joining Datavant, O'Toole was VP 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.

Throughout his career, O'Toole has worked on building out and maintaining multifunctional, high-performing engineering teams.

Datavant is the world leader in secure, compliant healthcare data exchange and has more than 8,000 employees. 

It is making the world’s health data secure, accessible and actionable.

Datavant’s vast and diverse health data exchange in the U.S. serves as a “network of networks,” enabling seamless, privacy-preserving data exchange between life sciences, payers, and providers through its platform.

The company connects disparate patient-level datasets — EHRs, claims data, lab results, clinical trial data, consumer data, and social determinants of health data.

The Irish centre will support the company’s overall global development approach to product development and will operate as an integrated part of Datavant’s tech and product development team.  

The company say it has set up in Ireland to attract top tech talent and to have around-the-clock productivity.

Two of the key reasons why Datavant chose Galway specifically were because of the rich talent pool in Galway and Ireland – especially highly-experienced people in the area of health tech — and because of its proximity to Datavant customers in the EU.  

Hiring has already begun for the new roles, which will initially be in engineering, the majority of which will focus on building Datavant’s Privacy and Linkage technologies to support its Life Sciences, Ecosystem and Public Sector business.

The company is also recruiting for technology roles to support security and corporate systems.

Minister for Enterprise Tourism and Employment, Peter Burke, said the region was "strongly supported by third level education providers, the University of Galway (UG), and the Atlantic Technological University (ATU), there will be an abundance of qualified professionals available for the roles."

Datavant CEO 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.

"Our new Global Development Centre in Galway is going to be a critical part of achieving our vision that every health decision is powered by the right data at the right time in the right format.

"We are excited to have Ciaran O’Toole come on board as our first team member in Ireland and look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration with him and the team in Ireland.” 

Mr O'Toole said: " Beyond 2027, we plan to continue to build out our Galway-based team with various technology roles and corporate functions in addition to technology. 

 "What Datavant is bringing to the Galway – and Irish – tech scene is incredible, especially at a time where the secure transfer of data is such a crucial component of an increasingly connected world.

"We are excited that the software we will be building here in Galway will be solving real-world problems and directly impacting healthcare decision-making globally.” 

Photos:Andrew Downes, xposure