A business based in the Innovation Centre at IT Sligo, Epona Biotech, was listed in a national newspaper league table at the weekend.
The founder of Epona Biotech, Dr Dr Heinrich Anhold, was listed in the Sunday Independent’s ‘40 under 40: the Young Turks and Tycoons of Tomorrow’.
Sligo native Dr Anhold is developing a breakthrough, hand-held blood analyser than can deliver instant blood analysis at a horse’s side through his company, which he founded in 2008.
The company fought off stiff competition to be named the Best Emerging Company in the 2010 All-island Seedcorn Business Competition.
Dr Anhold conceived the concept for the device with a wealth of experience in the equine industry from his upbringing on his parents Horse Holiday Farm in Grange, Co Sligo, and from his own experience in international show jumping.
Having completing a PhD in Biochemistry, he then set about developing the business idea and received practical supports from an early stage at IT Sligo’s Innovation Centre; first in the form of the ‘Hot desk’ facility, which provides office space for emerging businesses; and secondly from the CEIM Enterprise Platform Programme, a one-year full-time professional training and enterprise support programme aimed at the needs of entrepreneurs in a business start-up situation.
The programme was jointly delivered by IT Sligo and LYIT and was the first of its kind to be undertaken by Institutes of Technology in Ireland. The programme has now been replaced by the New Frontiers Enterprise Platform Programme.
Dr Heinrich Anhold, founder of Epona Biotech.
