Leonora O’Brien, who quit her job in the pharmacy regulator in 2012 to set up Pharmapod, has secured serious buy-in from investors, with a funding round of €750,000 in recent months to finance expansion of the company.

Leonora O'Brien (39) comes from an entrepreneurial background and she worked in the private sector with Celesio and Doc Morris before a two-year stint with the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland.

Pharmapod is a cloud-based software solution charged for by monthly subscription that allows pharmacists to record and report adverse drug effects to their peers. By some estimates around 200,000 deaths a year in Europe are caused by adverse reaction to prescribed medicines.

Pharmapod got going in August 2012 with €20,000 from the National Digital Research Centre and €25,000 from Enterprise Ireland.

The state agency followed-up with another €25,000 in November 2012, and O'Brien persevered with product development off this meagre funding base through 2013, with accumulated losses standing at €185,000 at year-end.

In Association with

Pharmapod founder Leonora O'Brien

The Pharmapod platform received a vote of confidence in May 2014 when Raj Patel, owner of Hollowood Chemists Group in Manchester, invested €100,000.

In August 2014, Enterprise Ireland stumped up another €250,000, bringing taxpayer commitment to the venture to €300,000. This EI cash injection was leveraged by €225,000 sourced from four private investors.

They are pharmacist Paul Fahey (€50,000), who acts as Phrmapod's business development officer; Sean Cody (€25,000); pharmacist and investor Paddy Digan (€100,000), a former non-exec with United Drug; and Brian McCartan (€50,000), owner of McCartans Pharmacy in Sutton.

In addition, the company says that that in 2014 the AIB Seed Capital Fund has invested €150,000 and the National Digital Research Centre has invested €25,000.

The new equity capital is being used in the development of Pharmapod's Global Reporting and Learning system which the company says has the potential to significantly reduce the financial and risk management burden in healthcare systems.

Pharmapod was advised on the funding round by Philip Lee Solicitors. (October 2014)