The founder of Ireland’s largest indigenous medtech company, Aerogen, which on Wednesday announced 725 new jobs in a €300 million expansion, said he does not see the sector being hit with tariffs from the incoming Trump administration.
John Power founded his company over a butcher’s shop in Moycullen over 25 years ago and while the it continues to have its headquarters in Galway, almost 44 per cent of its exports go to the United States.
“For any life-sciences medtech company in Ireland, the US is [the] primary focus,” Mr Power said. “It is the largest market in the world for any medical company. Twenty per cent of Aerogen’s global employees are based in the US so from day one America was our big market.”
The Dangan-based group – one of the world’s leading manufacturers of respiratory nebulisers – plans to introduce the new jobs over the next 10 years.
It has been growing at a rate of 20 per cent annually for the last decade and plans to accelerate its device technology through new product innovation. It has annual revenues of more than €150 million.
“We’ve got great deep [US] relationships there in the clinical medical field,” Mr Power said following the announcement. “I can’t see that for the life of me changing, you know, with whatever government comes in. The talks of tariffs and things on products, all it’ll do is push cost into the US medical healthcare system anyhow. So I don’t think it’s beneficial for anyone.”
He said medtech products were probably among the last that would be the target of tariffs, given their benefits to American consumers.
“We were the people who during Covid shipped products that were used on virtually every American patient who ended up ventilated – an Aerogen product was used for delivery of drugs for that patient. So, I don’t see where the benefit comes to anybody in tariffs in that regard.”
Aerogen, which owns production plants at Parkmore on the east of Galway and in Shannon, should increase its workforce to more than 2,000 through its expansion plan, which is backed by Enterprise Ireland, with more than half of those positions based in Ireland.
The newly created jobs will be across research and development (R&D), manufacturing, science and engineering and will be located at its two manufacturing sites.
Aerogen’s drug delivery devices are used in the treatment of critical respiratory illness and other non-respiratory illnesses. They have been used to treat more than 25 million patients in emergency departments, adult and paediatric ICUs, general wards and ambulance services.
“That is 25 million patients. I say to the young people when they start work here, think about how each unit finds its way to some patient in a critical condition somewhere in the world,” Mr Power said.
“We are in 80 countries around the world with our products, so that product makes a difference to that one person. The fact that we are honoured and gifted to impact 25 million patients is phenomenal.”
Welcoming the announcement, Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke said companies such as Aerogen were exactly the type the new government would be targeting for progress in the next few years.
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