US health data platform Datavant is expanding into Ireland with a new global R&D centre in Galway, initially bringing 125 new tech and engineering jobs
Leading health data platform Datavant today (31 March) announces its expansion into Ireland with the opening of its global R&D centre in Galway, and initial plans for 125 new jobs in engineering and technology.
Datavant says the Global Development Centre in Galway should be open in a city centre location by the end of 2027, with recruitment already underway for a range of engineering roles, as well as technology roles to support security and corporate systems. The tech software company will initially operate out of Galway’s Portershed.
Datavant CEO Kyle Armbrester is making the official announcement at an event this morning, attended by Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke, TD and IDA CEO Michael Lohan. Many of Datavant’s senior team will be in Galway for the occasion, including Matt Vail, chief technology officer; Arnaub Chatterjee, general manager and president of life sciences, ecosystem and public sector; and Susan Yun, chief people officer.
Datavant will also be announcing the appointment of Ciaran O’Toole as vice-president of engineering and Galway technical lead, based at the Galway office. O’Toole will lead the effort to build the Datavant engineering team in Ireland with a focus on building the company’s life sciences technology roadmap and integration with the enterprise technology organisation.
O’Toole was VP of software engineering for Globalization Partners, a Boston-based global recruitment and talent company, where he led the build-out of the company’s Irish engineering team and launched its Galway site.
“It is a great honour for me to be the first team member of Datavant in Ireland and I am looking forward to building a strong tech team here,” said O’Toole. “Beyond 2027, we plan to continue to build out our Galway-based team with various technology roles and corporate functions in addition to technology. What Datavant is bringing to the Galway – and Irish – tech scene is incredible, especially at a time where the secure transfer of data is such a crucial component of an increasingly connected world.”
Datavant specialises in secure, compliant healthcare data exchange, with more than 8,000 employees globally. It aims to connect disparate patient-level datasets – claims data, lab results, clinical trial data, consumer data, social determinants of health data, and more – in a privacy-compliant manner.
The new Irish-based Global Development Centre will operate as an integrated part of Datavant’s tech and product development team, and speaking to Newstalk’s Joe Lynam this morning, O’Toole said a key consideration when choosing Galway was the talent ecosystem and access to relevant third-level institutions. The Phoenix, Arizona company says the Irish base will also allow it to follow around-the-clock productivity, and offer proximity to its EU customers.
“At Datavant, we are solving one of the biggest challenges in healthcare – fragmented data. Data is hard to move, protect and use because across life sciences, payers and providers, critical insights remain siloed in a fragmented healthcare system,” said Armbrester.
As Donald Trump’s big tariff day looms, O’Toole said, as a software company, it should not be immediately affected, as the initial wave of tariffs are focused on products rather than services.
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