Waterford City is to be home to Kinetic Labs, Ireland’s first private laboratory incubator space for the life sciences sector, which has just opened its doors.

The facility offers single and shared wet lab space, offices, meeting rooms and a café, and is available to rent by startups and science-based companies.

The new centre has been created using a REDF grant from Enterprise Ireland plus additional funding from WorkLAB and Waterford City and County Council, with considerable input from local Irish-owned pharmaceutical company Eirgen Pharma, founded by Patsy Carney.

Carney has been discussing the new lab in a new ‘Science of Business’ podcast along with Q1 Scientific founder Louise Grubb.

“We know that Kinetic Labs will play a critical role in building on the capability and entrepreneurship potential of existing indigenous and multinational life science companies here in the south-east," he explained. “We are a region with a core cluster of life sciences and medical device companies and we have a critical mass of talent in this sector, and I know that for startups finding affordable and flexible lab space can be a big challenge. 

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“Kinetic Labs offers the ideal space for those working in the industry who might be considering their own entrepreneurial journey, along with spin-outs from third level universities and institutes plus the life sciences sector, sciences, medical device, pharma, bio-pharma and even the higher-end functional food sector. There is even great opportunity for the specialist equipment suppliers to use the space to demo products to potential customers.”

Carney (pictured) added that it’s simply a first step, in his view, and that it’s his vision “to develop a science innovation hub through Kinetic Labs”.

EirGen was founded in 2005 by Carney and Tom Brennan and now employs c.200 people, manufacturing high-potency drugs for cancer chemotherapy.

Pic: Colin Shanahan / DigiCol Photography