Pictured: Conan Cavanagh and Suzanne Moloney, HidraMed Solutions.
Each week Business & Finance highlights an up-and-coming start-up, making waves in its industry. This week we look at HidraMed Solutions’ innovative wound dressing, devised by a patient, which piqued investor interest to the tune of a €1.25m investment round in 2019.
What is it?
HidraWear is the first product from HidraMed Solutions Ltd. HidraWear is a wound dressing system that will dramatically improve the wound care regime for people living with a debilitating disease called Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS).
HS causes painful lesions of the skin, in delicate areas of the body such as the armpit and groin. These lesions require constant wound care and current available products do not meet the needs of HS patients. Dressings very often leak, move or fall off. Further to that, constant application and removal of adhesives to the skin causes further damage to the affected area.
HidraWear dressings are super-absorbent and body conforming, designed specifically to sit in the affected area comfortably. HidraWear completely removes the need for adhesive skin contact by securely retaining the dressing in place through the device. Dressings can be applied, adjusted and removed quickly and easily.
Who’s behind it?
HidraMed Solutions was founded in 2016 by Suzanne Moloney, a HS patient from Dublin. After years of struggling with wound dressings, she developed HidraWear. Suzanne joined the BioExel med-tech accelerator at NUIG in January 2018 and worked with industry experts to develop HidraWear. Conan Cavanagh was next to join the team as COO in June 2018. Together, Suzanne and Conan have won several awards and grown the team to five people.
How is it funded?
In 2018, HidraMed was funded through competitive pitches and awards. They were successful in the BioExel program, EIT Health HeadStart Award, Enterprise Ireland Competitive Start Fund and an Intertrade Ireland Seedcorn national winner.
HidraMed closed an investment round of €1.25m in 2019, which will bring the company through the launch of its first product and the development of the product pipeline for HS wound care.
Future plans?
HidraMed is a B2C company, selling direct to consumer online, after launching into Ireland and the UK in 2019. HidraMed will expand market territory throughout Europe and into North America in 2020 and 2021, while in tandem, developing a strong reimbursement rationale and strategy and developing B2B relationships.
The HidraMed team plan to develop and commercialise a range of wound care products for HS before expanding the range into other areas of chronic wound care like venous leg ulcers and burns.
