Image: Dizfoto/Shutterstock
Ciara Donlon, CEO of Theya Healthcare, has made the shortlist of the 2017 Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards.
In 2013, Leonora O’Brien’s software company Pharmapod come out on top, overall, in the European leg of the 2017 Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards.
The following year, Yvonne Brady’s EVB Sports Shorts saw her through to the finals. In 2015, Ciara Clancy landed Ireland another European title at the event.
Now, in 2017, Ciara Donlon could follow suit. The founder and CEO of medtech company Theya Healthcare has been shortlisted as a finalist for the event.
“It’s a huge honour to have been chosen by Cartier as one of the three European finalists for such a prestigious worldwide award,” said Donlon.
Her company was founded in 2015, and designs and manufactures a post-surgery lingerie range, primarily for use by breast cancer patients. They are sold internationally.
“I set up Theya Healthcare because I wanted to help women undergoing breast cancer treatment feel better about themselves and heal faster. For that to be acknowledged by an organisation like Cartier means a lot.
“Hopefully, more women who can benefit from our products will now have a chance to access them.”
Ciara Donlon, founder and CEO of Theya Healthcare. Image: UCD
Based at NovaUCD, Theya Healthcare uses a fabric mix made from bamboo, which it claims is “ideal for post-operative products” due to it being anti-bacterial, thermally regulating, 59pc more absorbent than cotton and extremely soft, thus reducing skin irritation.
Donlon is up against Marina Ross, CEO of Nanobarrier (Russia) and Lise Pape, CEO of Walk with Path (UK) in the European section.
The winners of the 2017 Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards will be announced at a ceremony during the awards week, which takes place in Singapore from 8-13 April.
Clancy, Europe’s 2015 laureate at the awards, worked for several years with sufferers of Parkinson’s in Ireland, both as a physiotherapist and volunteer. Upon graduation from Trinity College Dublin in 2012, she launched Beats Medical, at the age of 22.
Clancy’s business created a smartphone app that provides ‘specialised cueing treatment’ for Parkinson’s patients, which is basically sound-wave treatment that enables people to regain mobility.
Clancy was a speaker at Inspirefest 2015 in June, where she gave an insight into what it took to create a viable start-up.
Inspirefest is Silicon Republic’s international event connecting sci-tech professionals passionate about the future of STEM. Book now to get your Early Bird tickets.
